


Dovetail

by ByJoveWhatASpend



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Concept Art Solas (Dragon Age), Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, M/M, Modern Boy in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Polyamory, Pop Culture, Trans Male Character, implied undiagnosed eating disorder, not too much but he is a simple man with simple tastes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByJoveWhatASpend/pseuds/ByJoveWhatASpend
Summary: Dove doesn't expect to find anything more exciting than trespassers when he makes his way to the caverns beneath Leadville Sanitarium, but it's a full moon during the worst year of his life, so it seems that his luck has run out. Are they really cultists, sacrificing a woman to a mysterious god on All Hallows Eve? He doesn't know, but he's also the only one around, so of course he tries to help.Now he finds himself in Thedas, with The Mark on his hand and surrounded by giants who can barely understand him, let alone take him seriously. The only thing he can do is close the Breach and hope that it's enough to wake him up from one of the weirdest dreams of his life. Because it has to be a dream. There is no other option.Right?
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke, Cole/Male Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Male Inquisitor (Dragon Age)/Everyone, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Inquisitor/Iron Bull, Male Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Male Inquisitor/Varric Tethras
Comments: 28
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I expected to have this first chapter finished a few days ago, but well, things are a bit crazy right now.
> 
> The entire story is planned out already, multiple pairings and plenty of smut throughout, once things get going. I think we could all use some stress relief and honestly, Dove deserves it and so do I.

“That ain’t even good candy!” Protested Brian, putting his hands up in the air in disgust. It was the first time the two of them had seen one another all night, and instead of saying ‘hi’ he was already yelling. “Tootsie rolls and  _ dots _ ? Not even  _ suckers _ ?”

“I’ve gotta sucker for later.” Folding himself uncomfortably into his hard little work chair, Dove flicked one candy down towards his coworkers arm. “You can have one.”

“Hell no.” He picked it up and tossed it back, perfectly aimed to nestle back in among the pile. “How the  _ fuck  _ did you get so tall when all you eat is  _ garbage _ ?” 

Dove didn’t let himself grin, focusing instead on opening a tiny yellow box of Dots, the first of three that would be making up the majority of his lunch. Truth be told he would prefer to be eating what Brian had-- the homemade fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes were stinking up the office and making his stomach twist with jealousy and pure  _ need _ . Despite being such a shitty and boring man, Brian was married, with a kid at home and a wife that made him dinner by hand, and Dove…

Dove had two fistfuls of candy for lunch and a boyfriend that was probably going to break up with him when he got home. On  _ Halloween Eve,  _ no less. 

_ ‘Or, well, actually. _ .’ He popped a Tootsie Roll in his mouth and pulled out his phone. It would be midnight in about twenty minutes, so Michael would be breaking up with him on  _ Halloween _ . 

‘ _ Fantastic. Best year of my life. _ ’

He had worked as a night guard for the Leadville Sanitarium for nearly four years now. It was beautiful, full of history, and constantly being toured, rented out for conferences or hosting massive, expensive weddings.

But all that was during the daytime. At night it was just a huge, empty building, only an hour's hike from the edge of Leadville proper. An attractive place to try and break into if you were sixteen and there were no more all night bowling alleys or house parties to entertain yourself when your parents went to sleep. With the  _ Way Things Were _ management had decided not to even set up the Haunted Hospital event, a mainstay of Leadville tradition since Dove himself was a kid. No trick or treating, no haunts, no weddings, no busfulls of children on school trips.

October was usually his favourite part of the year, but ever since the end of summer work had just been this.

Brian and Dove, alone, night after night, waiting for trespassers to show up.

“I miss the Haunted Hospital.” He said when the sound of Brian’s chewing started to grate on him. He slumped against the desk, closer to the space heater. He didn’t really want any more candy, the fake gooey chocolate sticking uncomfortable against the sides of his empty stomach rather than actually filling it.

“I know it.” sighed Brian. “Could be takin’ lunch with one of the actresses instead of your ugly mug.”

“You could try flirting with the Bathtub Lady.”

Brian slammed his fist on the table, but Dove didn’t flinch, because he  _ always  _ did that. “I'm telling you she was  _ real!” _

“ _ Mhm _ . A  _ real  _ ghost.”

“She don’t have to be a  _ ghost _ , but she was  _ real! _ ”

“A real  _ ghost _ .” 

He hit his fist against the table again before throwing up his hands in disgust. One was still holding his fork and smudge of potato landed on the keyboard. “You’re a fucking  _ infant _ .”

Dove had a sudden mental image of the potato festering between the keys and shuddered, putting his candy back into his pockets, appetite officially ruined.

After a few moments Brian sent him an odd look. “You done eating?”

“Yes?” 

“You’re sure? Lunch breaks over?”

A stupid, childish part of him suggests--  _ hopes--  _ that Brian is going to offer him some of his food. “Yes. Why?”

“Just saw someone pass by Camera Four.” Brian’s grin was ruthless as Dove’s heart sank. “And considering I’m still eating and all..”

“You’re kidding.” 

“Hand to God.” 

There were only seven cameras in the building, each stationed near an exit. Camera Four, however, wasn’t set up in the hospital itself, instead hanging over the door to the Cavern Tour Information Center and Gift Shop. It was a long walk with pretty steep stairs, not included on night shifts rounds for good reasons. Up until recently management had figured that if anyone wanted to spend the night in a relatively safe cavern that was their own damn choice. 

Naturally once the Labour Gods heard that a job had a reasonable policy that made people happy, something had to change. Over the summer some asshole had broken into the information center, stolen a couple historical pickaxes, and  _ suddenly  _ the bosses started worrying about the cave being  _ dangerous. _

And so now, as the most senior night shift security guard,  _ Dove  _ was the one expected to walk all the way down there and ruin someone's good time

In the dark.

In the cold.

“People, for sure?” He asked, half desperate, glaring at the screen and willing whoever it was to double back around. “Not raccoons again?”

“Definitely at least one person.” 

“God dammit.” He stood, zipping up his jacket and making sure his radio was clipped to his belt before picking up his flashlight. “Buzz me out?”

“Take East Wing, it's cold as shit tonight.”

The trip through the hospital was long, only his own footsteps and breathing for company. He had to turn his flashlight on in a few hallways but he mostly enjoyed the dark and silence, seeing by the full moon wherever he could manage. Most of the guards that couldn’t handle night shift at Leadville Sanitarium complained that the solitude was anxiety inducing. Hours with only your own thoughts, long empty hallways, always straining your ears for intruders… apparently that made people start to imagine ghosts.

Eventually he reached the exit door, clicking his radio’s call button twice to let Brian know he’d arrived. A moment later the door clicked and he stepped out into the night. It was windier than he was expecting, the cold cutting instantly through his cheap jacket. _ Probably time to switch to the winter one. _ He flipped the collar up and kept both fists buried in his pockets as he jogged down the moonlit stone path, doing a passable impression of a turtle trying to recede into his shell to avoid the winter. 

He reached the cement steps leading down to the cavern. The top was easily visible in the light of the full moon, but the twisting, uneven path, easy and fun to walk down during the day, was quickly swallowed up by the shadows of the trees once he was halfway down. 

_ If they offer me food, I’m taking it _ . He thought to himself as the lonesome giftshop light came into view.  _ I don’t care if it’s against the rules, if they offer me food I’ll be Cool Cop and go easy on them. I’ll bring them to the office and they can call someone to come pick them up, only assholes deserve to walk down the mountain in weather like this. _

The giftshop appeared to be entirely unmolested, thankfully. He stepped into the light, waving in the general direction of the security camera. He picked up the radio, keeping it close to his face. “Giftshop’s fine.” he said, voice low, fingers already frigid from a few seconds exposed to the wind. “Gonna check the caverns. Call you when I see whats up.”

He released the button and pressed the walkie against his chest to muffle the noise. After a few seconds it crackled to life, Brian’s voice tinny and barely recognizable. “ _ That’s a big 10-4 good buddy _ .”

He snorted but didnt respond, put the radio back on his hip and headed inside.

The moment he was inside the cavern things felt strange. Only a few steps past the caved mouth it stopped being dark, a warm light like fire licking across the walls and the wooden path under his feet. He couldn’t see any light sources, just a certain ambient glow, casting no shadows and adding no warmth.

_ Probably reflections. Ice on the walls from the cold. _ He told himself. He had never come here in the winter so he didn’t know for sure if the walls iced over, but it made sense enough in his head. 

What didn't make sense was what he found waiting for him.

The room was huge, big enough to comfortably house a couple dozen Brownie scouts in shared tents during summer weekends, but the people standing in a loose circle around the towering stalagnate made the room appear cramped. They were massive men, both wide and tall, many of which were wearing dark hoods that obscured their faces, and the largest of all of them had- Dove wasn't sure what he had. _ A crown? _ Something large and spikey, branching off from only one side of his face, matching his equally spikey clothes.

The man was turned away from Dove for now, speaking, gesturing with long and unnatural looking arms. His voice was resonated strangely around the room, to the point that Dove couldn’t understand him. The smaller men all responded in unison though, raising their arms, light catching on shining blades.

_ Cultists? _ Even the voice in Dove’s head was doubtful. That wasn’t a real  _ thing _ ! It was pop culture, horror movie shit. 

_ Full moon on Halloween _ . The voice reminded him.  _ Probably a good time to be a cultist. _

His hand went to the radio at his side, but he knew it wouldn’t get a signal inside the cavern.  _ They’re just teenagers playing a prank _ . He tried to reassure himself, grabbing his flashlight, holding it out to his side in case he needed to use it like a club.  _ You’ll laugh about it once it’s over. _

A woman’s shout, loud and shrill enough to make his ears ring. His heart pounded in his chest as he stepped to the side, looking, expecting to find her strapped down on a table, some naked young woman ready to play sacrifice.  _ Please be a roleplay, please be a roleplay! _

It took him a moment to find her, hanging from the stalagnate several feet above the floor. She wasn’t naked, wearing instead a long red and white robe, with her arms stretched out wide like she was being crucified. Her face was ancient, at least seventy or more, and he knew, instantly, that she never would have been able to make this hike on her own, not for a prank, not for some Halloween Fun.

The tall man was leaning in close to her, brandishing something in his hand, a glowing green light. They were eye-to-eye, even though his feet were on the ground.

“Someone! Help me!” the woman screamed, and finally Dove remembered his feet, stepping foreward and brandishing his flashlight, shouting at the top of his lungs.

“What the  _ hell  _ do you fuckers think you’re  _ doing?! _ ”

The hooded men startled, whipping around, swords in hand and shock on their faces. The man he assumed to be their leader turned as well, and  _ oh-  _ his face was  _ gnarled _ , twisted, disfigured and  _ wrong  _ in a way that Dove couldn’t quite make sense of. 

Before anyone could respond, the hanging woman lurched forward, smacking the light out of the terrible man's hand. It flew towards Dove and he ducked out of its path, hearing it hit the wall behind him with a heavy crack.

“ **Fool woman** !” the monster shouted, enraged, his long and unnatural fingers reaching for him. Dove stepped back, out of his grasp, but no, he was reaching for the light. “ **Don’t you touch it!** ”

Knowing a valuable artifact when he saw it, Dove turned and leapt for the glowing light, grabbing at it before it could fall back into their reach. He heard steps on the stairs below, the cultists coming for him, the shouting of the gigantic man, but the moment his fingers closed around the heavy glowing ball it all fell away.

The ball was hot,  _ electric--  _ burning lightning shot through his entire body, hand to arm to head to feet. He couldn't breathe, couldn't blink, couldn't  _ move _ . Burning, freezing, sharp,  _ cutting _ , the thing in his hand was flaying him alive, cooking him to  _ death _ .

_ ‘Bare hands _ ’ was the only thought he could hold onto, regret, self loathing, a stupid mistake that was going to get him killed any second now.

“NO!” roared the man behind him while the old woman screamed again. The light was so bright he couldn’t see the cavern or the path any more, bright white and piercing his eyes, his hand was gone, the radio at his hip  _ screeched _ .

‘ _ Oh _ .’ he thought, when the pain suddenly came to a head and the rest of the world stopped existing around him, when it was only him and the light that was left. ‘ _ That was a bomb. _ ’

After that, there was nothing left to think.

  
  


XXXX

  
  


Having not expected to wake up again, Dove was pretty irritated the moment he realized he was alive.

His right hand was buzzing and tingling like it had gone to sleep, sharp and uncomfortable stabbing sensations running up the nerves of his arm in time with his heartbeat. ‘ _ Probably got blown off. Probably phantom limb.’  _ He thought, with a sick turn of his stomach. He didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to assess the damage, find out how bad off he was. His body ached in a dull, distant way, but considering that he felt pretty god damned drugged that didn’t really mean anything.

Maybe if he went back to sleep he wouldn’t wake up again. If he was lucky.

“Are you awake?”

Dove’s startled at the unfamiliar voice, opening his eyes. For a moment he was blind, unable to make out the swimming yellow shape above him against the stark white background of the ceiling. ‘ _ Ambulance _ .’ His mind supplied, blinking until the concerned face of the stranger started to swim into shape. He was blonde, unshaven, clearly exhausted, and there was a smudge of drying blood on his cheek.  _ ‘Paramedic _ .’

The idea horrified him so intensely that he instantly tried to sit up, pushing against the surprisingly powerful hand on his chest. 

“Stay down, you’re not well!” the man ordered, and though Dove could understand him his accent sounded foreign, half garbled with incorrected stresses and tones. 

“No no, I can’t, I  _ cant!” _ He redoubled his efforts, turning and slipping under the hand, trying to get his feet onto the ground. The bed--  _ the gurney _ \-- was too high, though, and the paramedic easily pushed him back onto it, holding him in place. He was huge and strong and Dove knew instantly that he wouldn’t have too much trouble forcing Dove to stay“I didn’t call you, I can drive myself, I can’t  _ afford  _ an ambulance ride!”

“Calm down!” The stranger was trying to regulate his voice to be soothing at the same time as forceful, but the irritation was winning out. He said more things, maybe ‘healing’ or  _ ‘feeling’  _ and probably ‘safe’ but Dove wasn’t interested in sounding it out, he just wanted,  _ needed _ , to be out of the van.

“I CAN'T AFFORD IT, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!” Dove knew, like he was a different person entirely looking in on the situation, that he was not being entirely rational. His rational brain was going for a walk while his emotional one took full control.  _ This will be embarrassing later. _ He knew it, but that knowledge didn’t let him stop. “I DONT HAVE INSURANCE LET ME  _ OUT!” _

The paramedic said something else, something Dove lost entirely in the fog of panic, and suddenly a cool river flowed through his chest, icing his lungs and frantic heart, freezing his limbs, the flush on his neck and face.  _ ‘Sedative’  _ supplied the rational part of him, relieved but only further embarrassed that it had been needed at all. 

He thought he would go to sleep, but he didn’t quite make it there. Yes, his eyes were closed and he was still, his brain completely numb to all thoughts, but there was still some amount of awareness. Footsteps around him. Murmured words he couldn't parse. Distant sounds. He was not quite from his own body in a way he only ever felt when truly and intensely high, the rare times when he completely misjudged the strength of someone’s brownies or when he forgot entirely how math worked and ate half a weed candy instead of a tenth. Buzzing. Floating.  _ Distant _ . Time didn’t exist and neither did his body-- other than the terrible shocks still occasionally resonating from his hand.

Maybe he did fall asleep a little, or maybe enough time passed that he started to come down. Either way, he was suddenly and abruptly aware that the ambulance was not moving and that he was alone. Angry voices outside that he couldn't make out but probably not something he needed to worry about. He had control of his legs and arms again, though they still felt oddly light and floaty. 

He lifted his right hand, eyes still closed, flexing his fingers. He could just barely feel them move, tapping his palm, the majority sensation still the terrible static. Probably still there. Not a stump. Nerve damage? Probably gruesome. He could handle it.

He opened his eyes.

Stared.

Blinked. And blinked again.

“Oh.” he said, flexing his fingers, watching the odd, plasma-like glow of his palm stretch and shift. “ _ Oh _ .”

It was the Mark. He was the Inquisitor. 

Fucking  _ Dragon Age _ . 

It was a  _ dream _ .

Relief flowed through him, head to toes, so intense it left him breathless. What a  _ stupid  _ fucking nightmare. What a god damned  _ silly  _ idiot he was. A  _ dream _ ! The people in the cave were Corypheus and his followers and the bomb was The Orb. God, what king of stupid fucking asshole was he?! 

He gave a shaky laugh, pushing himself up clumsily, loose-limbed and still a bit dizzy. He wasn’t in an ambulance after all, he realized, but a tent, featureless and offwhite with a strangely tall cot below him. It had probably turned into a tent while he was out of it, when he reacted more intensely to the idea of a hospital visit than his subconscious had been prepared for. Dreams  _ always  _ made him panic, so it would probably happen again sometime soon over something ridiculous, but for now he could just revel in the magic.

When was the last time he’d had a fun dream? Everything lately had been about shopping for books or desperately trying to get people to wear masks. Nothing fun, no whimsy, no power fantasies to speak of.

And now he was the god damned Inquisitor!

He did a quick check over his body, ears first then torso and limbs. No changes that he could perceive. Still human, equally proportioned, still himself, wearing his jacket over his work uniform and with his radio clipped to his belt. His flashlight was nowhere to be seen but it was no great loss, honestly.

_ Can I use a sword? Am I a mage?  _ He wondered with excitement.  _ Can the dream stay on track enough for me to romance Bull? _

He wasn’t able to think too far ahead though, because a moment later the tentflap opened and the paramedic from before-  _ the healer? _ \- returned. He stopped only one step in, staring at Dove assessingly, like he expected him to start panicking again, but Dove just stared right back.

It was hard  _ not  _ to stare, now that he knew what was going on, so he let himself take his fill. The man was a stranger-- simple robes and blonde hair pulled back over a receding hairline. The edges of him didn’t quite come into focus, honestly, the detail lost as though Dove ought to be wearing glasses. Without much to latch on to there, he was plain, but he was also smiling and Dove let himself smile back. 

“How are you feeling?”

Unfortunately it didn’t really sound like ‘ _ how are you feeling _ ’, though. What Dove heard was ‘ _ hooked on a feeling _ ’ and it took him a full five seconds or so to process that and make sense of it, during which time the man’s smile disappeared and his brow furrowed with concern. “I’m fine.” Dove put his hands up, trying to wave off his concern but only really succeeding in bringing attention to The Mark. “Except-- well,  _ this  _ I guess.”

Based on the somewhat mystified expression on his face, the Accent Issue went both ways. He stepped closer to the bed and Dove realized that he needed to lean back to look at him. Probably more seven feet tall, maybe even  _ eight _ , and when his hands came up to surround The Mark they were absolutely huge and rough with calluses. “Does it hurt?” He asked, holding his hand like it was made of glass, and looking into his eyes with a level of soft care and worry that he couldn't remember ever having felt before.

Dove, who had been the tallest person in any room he entered since he was sixteen, blushed.

_ Blushed!  _ Like an idiot romance novel heroine!

“It’s fine.” He ducked his chin and looked away, anywhere but the strangers' eyes.

There were more questions, some Dove could understand and some he couldn't. The man’s name was probably ‘Faren’, though it sounded a bit like  _ ‘Ferret’ _ , and he was patient and unbearably slow about letting himself be understood and making sure he understood Dove in return. Where was Dove from, what did he remember, was he alone? Dove answered honestly but as simply as he could  _ (Leadville, everything, no) _ but refused to expound on it, itching to get up and start actually playing the game.

When Faren started asking about the radio at his hip, giant fingers sliding across it with intense focus, Dove lost his patience, swatting his hand away. “The prisoner is awake now, shouldn’t you be going to get Cassandra? Isn’t there something we ought to be  _ doing  _ here?” 

Faren was taken aback, stumbling over his words, apparently disagreeing with something there, but Dove had no patience left.

“ _ Cassandra _ . Go  _ get  _ her, I want to get moving before I  _ wake up _ !”

Clearly uncomfortable, Faren eventually nodded, standing up and walking out of the tent with a few words he couldn't understand. Dove waited until the sound of his steps faded before throwing himself off the cot and onto his feet. The world titled in an alarming way as he fell, his stomach dropped and things felt  _ wrong _ , but once he was upright he didn’t fall down, only slightly dizzy. 

“Don't puke don't puke.” He mumbled to himself, holding a hand over his stomach, only to yelp and jerk it away when the stupid fucking Mark  _ shocked  _ him. “ _ Stop _ that.” he hissed, clenching his fingers over it and shoving it into his pocket. 

Outside the tent was much colder than he expected. A biting wind cut through his jacket in hardly a moment and licked ice all over his neck. His hair whipped him in the eyes and he put up his left hand quickly to push it back, even as he tried to hunch in on himself to make a smaller target. 

There were a lot of tents set up, huge ones of varying colours and shapes crowded around outside a massive brick church, and dozens of people walking around just in his eyeline. All of them were huge like Faren, dressed in thick medieval clothing or armour. Most of them looked frantic, many were injured, but above them all, in amongst the clouds, there pulsed The Breach.

It was breathtaking in real life.  _ Radiant _ . Not just green, but white and blue as well, shifting and shimmering high above the mountain, constantly in motion. It looked more like the Aurora Borialis than the strange inferno the game engine had been able to produce. He stared at it, transfixed, taking in its curling and stretching shapes, trying to see if it was widening. Maybe. Possibly. Slowly, if so. 

Though it was beautiful, Dove was impatient and couldn’t look at it for terribly long without wanting to keep moving. It was his job to close it, right? And he could tell already that just reaching it would be a long, rough walk. He turned his gaze down to the people instead, catching the reflection of the Breach’s colours on their lowered, drawn faces, spilling down the sides of the cleaner tents. A giddy piece of him wanted to go up to one of the strangers, tug on their arm and ask if they were seeing it too, if it was as beautiful as he thought it was.

No, even in a dream people wouldn't like  _ that _ , not one bit. 

A massive hand touches his shoulder and he jerks away, spinning and staggering slightly in the snow. The size of Feron surprises him. He knew he was large already, but standing up, Dove tops out somewhere near his armpit. He laughs in surprise, a little dizzy at the very idea, stepping back so he didn’t have to crane his neck to see him. “How’s the weather up there?”

Feron tilts his head, smiling slightly in confusion, before waving it away. He said a few words, something about ‘ _ I’ll be right here _ ’, before putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him around the tent. 

Cassandra looked so much like herself that, if Dove hadn’t been expecting to see her, he never would have recognized her. She wasn’t a dedicated and beautiful cosplayer with a delicate face, perfectly coifed pixie cut and artfully applied makeup. Nothing about her was affectation, no mishmash of stylized symbols that were recognizable within the context of fanart. She was a real human being, and Dove could only stare in shock.

She wore no makeup, the skin around her eyes was dark from exhaustion, her lips chapped, her cheekbones and jawline intense. Her hair was closely cut but still managed to stick up every which way, an artless mess, and her armour was covered in mud, strange black ooze and dry blood. He could only barely see the eye emblazoned on her chest, weeping, filthy, borderline ugly.

Cassandra was talking but Dove didn’t hear a word of it, still in shock. He knew he shouldn’t be so surprised-- it was a dream, so of course she would look real to him. Hell, if she were a literal muppet then he would probably still find her unbearably realistic. Whenever he woke up he would probably laugh and realize how silly she looked, but at the moment? 

Cassandra was every bit as amazing to behold as the Breach itself.

...And she was still talking. The hand on his shoulder shook him lightly, and Dove blinked hard to bring himself out of his daze. Her mouth was twisted, not quite a scowl, just barely hiding it. “I’m sorry.” He said, and he meant it. He pushed his hair back over his ears, took a step forward and willed himself to fucking  _ listen _ . “Please repeat that?”

He could tell she didn’t want to, that she was angry and hurting and confused, but she didn’t yell at him. She took a grounding breath and spoke again.

“A terrible tragedy has befell the Conclave… Divine Justinia is missing.. Everyone is dead...You fell from the Breach and the people say that it was Andraste herself who saved you. They believe that the mark on your hand may be a gift from her, a way to close the tear in the sky.”

There was a little bit more at the end, which he thought might have been a prayer, but he was pretty sure he understood the general gyst. It was everything he could do to keep from bouncing on his heels in excitement, but she was so clearly disturbed that he knew better than to let on. “It can! It can help and that’s why I’m here. To help.” He lifted his hand, palm-up, so all three of them could see the odd way the light and colour rolled across it. Maybe more like a green fog than ectoplasm, as he’d first thought. Cassandra’s eyes were riveted on the light, wary but determined. “Trust me on this. If you can get me to the Breach then I can stop it from growing.”

She doesn’t trust him, its obvious from the curl of her lip to the way she clenches her hands at her side, but they both know she doesn’t have any other option. “Very well.” she says, slow and even. “Afterwards there  _ will  _ be questions.”

“If I’m still here I’ll try to answer them”

The two of them set out for the mountain together, Cassandra taking one step for every two of Doves. Feron follows at first, but lags behind once the tents begin to thin out. He is needed there, and can not protect Dove from the things closer to the Breach. Even so, when the crunching of his boots fades away, Dove turns, walking backwards and waving to him. Faron, after a moment, waves back, though his eyes drift far above their heads.

The two of them follow a well worn path in the snow. It is muddy in places and more than once Dove slips, but Cassandra seems to have no trouble at all. They pass people coming down, or huddle together behind low stone barricades, avoiding the wind or tending their wounds. Maybe both. A few of those they passed were dead. Dove recognized the dead instantly, even when he couldn’t see their faces. Snow piled up on their armour, even and undisturbed, having been left like that for ages, hours at least. Few of these people were alone.

It unsettled him and he avoided looking in their faces after the first time. Better to pretend not to know.

They stepped over another such pair, Cassandra stoic and determined, Dove shivering and awkward. Normally he didn’t mind long walks by himself, but the tension was getting to him and beside that, this wasn’t a person beside him-- it was  _ Cassandra _ , and he had questions. “Am I a prisoner?” 

She turns to look at him, eyes narrow, then back to the path. “Have you been treated like a prisoner?”

“No- that’s why I’m asking. Oh!” His foot slid on a patch of extra-slick snow and Cassandra stopped to wait for him to re-catch his balance, only starting to walk again once he did. “I just mean that I woke up in a medical tent?”

“Yes.”

“...But I wasn’t injured.”

“You were unconscious. Where else would we have put you?”

“The dungeon?”

Cassandra shakes her head, holding up her hand for silence before they cross a stone bridge. The stone is honestly slicker than the snow was, but he walks carefully, determined not to trip over the lines of injured laid out on cots or sleeping bags. There are crates of supplies, mostly medicines and blankets, and healers are scrambling between patients. Few people look at them, too wrapped up in their own grief and fear, but some stare at Dove so intently that it makes his skin crawl.

When they are away from them, climbing a winding incline, Cassandra speaks again. Her words are unnaturally slow and measured, trying to make them clear for him. “You must believe Ferelden to be barbaric.” She said. “The idea that we would put a child in a cage..”

She sounded upset, but Cole was one of his favourite characters so he knew better. “You put  _ mages  _ in cages.”

“In towers.” she shakes her head, a scowl on her face. “And you are not a mage so it is irrelevant.”

“Lucky me.” They are coming up on another bridge. He thinks that it's the one that is meant to break when they step on it, though he couldn’t say for certain. His right hand is aching terribly, the fingers twitching in pain, entirely out of his control. He shudders as a sudden stab goes up his arm, and lets out a gasp. “ _ Oh _ ! Mmmmf..!” Cassandra was looking back at him again but he doesn’t want to complain so he scrambles for something to say instead. “ Um, um, actually! Did you call me a child before? Because I’m, I’m  _ not _ .”

“You are.” she doesn’t entertain the idea for even a moment, snorting through her nose with amusement. “And do not argue against it. Because of that, whatever happened here, whatever you did, you can only be a… tool. At most you are a weapon, not the person who wields it, who directs the strike.  _ That  _ is why you are not a prisoner.”

“Even though I am just… incredibly suspicious looking?” It was getting easier to understand her now, as his ear got used to the rhythm of her voice. It helped that the wind was ahead of them, blowing her voice directly into his ear.

“ _ Especially _ because of that. A good spy would not be so easy to spot, but a scapegoat might be.” They reach the bridge and Cassandra’s boots click loudly on the stone. Dove pauses at the edge, looking up. He couldn’t see the thing that would hit them but he knew it was there. Cassandra turned back, her hands on her hips. “What is it?”

“Um..” He kept looking up, searching. The light emanating from the Breach made looking directly at it uncomfortable. He could see a few things falling from it, but they seemed to be going in different directions. “You should get off the bridge.”

Cassandra whipped her head upwards as well, searching the sky and stepping back onto the ground. They stood together there for several seconds. Long seconds. Embarrassing, unending, minute-long seconds, as Dove stood shivering in place and Cassandra stayed watching the sky.

“Oh.” she said, and Dove blinked hard, stared, until finally he could make out the dark shape flying towards them. Cassandra took a step back, grabbing the handle of her sword, and Dove stepped back as well, shielding his face. The shape hit the bridge before them and kept going, the ground shaking beneath its impact, the bridge bursting apart. Stone flew in every direction, scattering over the icey lake below, as did the crates that had been stacked there. It occurred to Dove that he hadn’t noticed if any people were on the bridge, and if he should have warned them of the impact.

When the debris settled he didn’t see any corpses, so it was probably fine.

He leaned forward a few inches to look down at the mess of stone and dirt, looking for demons, but nothing below them moved. He noticed, after a moment, that Cassandra was staring at him. “What?” he asked, uncomfortable with her sharp gaze.

“Did you see it falling?” she asked.

“No.”

She nodded, and he was glad he didn’t lie, because it was clear that she wouldn’t have believed it. “But you knew that it would hit this bridge?”

“Yes.” Probably best to stick to the truth. She stared at him, hard, and he raised his hands to remind her he was unarmed. “I promised to explain later, but the short answer is that I know the general idea of my purpose here, and the broad strokes of what will happen along the way. The bridge was going to get hit, there are demons on the ice once we get down there, and a lot more on the way to the Breach.”

She tilts her head, clenches her jaw. He knows he’s not being particularly eloquent here, but he figured that at the very least she is less likely to hit him if he doesn’t attempt to be mysterious. Honesty wherever he can manage. 

Cassandra let out a breath between her teeth, drawing herself up. Dove’s own shoulders droop with relief when he realizes that she believes him. “You said before that your purpose was to stop the Breach spreading?” 

“Yep.”

“And  _ after  _ that?”

After that he would almost certainly move on to a different sort of dream-- if they even got to the Breach in the first place. “Umm.. more complicated.” He admitted, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist as the wind roared past them. “Would rather talk about it when things calm down.”

“I see the wisdom in that.” Cassandra took one more steadying breath before stepping to the side of the bridge. She moved like a cat, despite her gigantic size. Maybe a tiger, 8 feet tall and terrifyingly broad, still nimble despite the heavy armour on her upper body. She got to the bottom of the cliffside in only a few steps whereas Dove needed to cling onto the icy stone and slide gracelessly down the dirt until his feet met ice.

Honestly he was a little surprised that it was so easy to fall so far. His ankles hadn’t so much as twinged when he reached the bottom, whereas in real life they would ache if he so much as slept wrong. ‘ _ Such is the benefit of a dream, I guess. _ ’ he thought, with no small amount of amusement. ‘ _ That or I really am much younger here. _ ’

He turned to look at her, and realized only when he saw her frown that he himself was smiling. “A note on your prophecy.” she said, and he nodded encouragingly, rubbing his mouth with his normal hand to look appropriately serious. “I believe that, had we not stopped, we  _ would  _ have made it across.”

“Better safe than sorry, right?”

She hummed, stepping back along the ice. “If there are truly demons here then you should stay behind me.”

They get only a few steps across the ice, gritty with pieces of shattered bridge and so easy to walk upon, when they both shout out an alarm as something black and twisted rises from the ice. It’s gigantic, long and writhing like a tentacle, but with terrible babadook-style arms reaching out from it. It’s pretty far out on the ice though, so Dove isn’t too worried about it-- until, that it, Cassandra takes off, charging straight towards it with her sword raised.

He only watches long enough to confirm that she isn’t going to slip and fall on her ass, before turning around to look for the box of weapons he knew would be--

Another shape rose from the ice, only a scant few yards from him, and he took off instantly for what was left of the bridge.  _ No time for plans, only weapons and running! _

He spotted the broken crate behind a rock and skidded his way to the ground beside it. In the game it held whatever weapon the character specialized in, but so long as it wasn’t a bow and arrow he knew he would probably be fine. His heart dropped when the first thing he spotted was a quiver full of arrows, but fortunately it wasn't the  _ only  _ thing in the crate. There was a long stick--  _ mages staff _ \-- that didn’t look very promising, a shield nearly as big as he was, a sword sticking blade-side-out which he tugged on but seemed to be stuck. The demons slithering sounds were coming closer and he was starting to think that the box had had a bow he mightve actually wanted to give that chance. His hand closed around a hand of some sort, and he planted his feet on the rocks and gave it a powerful  _ yank _ . 

The crate shattered with an unexpected amount of drama, throwing Dove backwards. He didn’t have time to be confused by the physics, though, because immediately the demon was upon him, gnashing black teeth and grabbing at his jacket with overlong claws. He swung his weapon wildly, and a meaty crack accompanied the monsters wail, Doves back hitting the ground while he was dropped. 

The weapon in his hand was a mace, strangely light, but looking back at the demon it had apparently snapped the monsters elbow. The creature was swaying, curled around the twisted arm, moaning and growling in pain, and Dove felt guilt twist at his stomach. It was a monster, yes, but in general Dove  _ liked  _ monsters. “Sorry.” he said, reflexive, scrambling back and away from it, his heart dropping as the thing turned its attention back to him, its neck swinging like a snakes. “Just back off and I won't hit you again.”

The things mouth dropped open, jaw unhinged, its teeth where black and it’s throat cavernous, wide enough to swallow him whole. It  _ screeched _ , so loud it made Dove’s ears ring, so loud that Faren must have heard it back in Haven, so loud that Dove thought for a moment, that it must be his alarm clock, waking him up before anything  _ exciting  _ could happen. He scrambled away from it, on his back like a crab, unwilling to turn his back to it even for the moment it would take to turn over and get his feet underneath him, and the creature advanced, swinging it’s good arm back, ready to strike.

A sword struck through the creatures throat and the screaming ended with a gurgle. The blade was black with ichor and it followed through, carving down the beasts chest, until it fell to the ground, crumbled and dead, the heat of its black blood steaming in the air. Cassandra stood behind it, looking no worse for wear though even dirtier than before.

“Are you hurt?” she asked after she had looked him over. He shook his head, pushing himself to his feet and holding up the mace to show he hadn’t been defenseless. She tilted her head with curiosity. “You are trained with how to use that?”

“Nope, but I’m not going to drop it.” He was prepared for an argument but she didn’t make one simply nodding her head in agreement. “You uh… don’t have a problem with that?”

“Untrained, you would not be able to hurt me with it.” she says, answering the question Dove hadn’t been comfortable actually raising. She put her sword back at her side, and made such an intensely powerful picture that Dove’s heart skipped a beat. “Try not to hurt yourself with it, though. I would prefer  _ not  _ to have to carry you up the mountain.” 

They walk together across the frozen river. The light layer of snow makes it easier, but Dove still struggles to keep up, every step a minefield while Cassandra seems to have no trouble at all. He tries to see the bottom of her boots when she walks but they don't appear to have anything unusual on them. Dove had lived in a snowy climate for over ten years and he wasn’t half as confident in his footsteps as she was. Maybe it was because she was heavy? She had to be at least 300 pounds with her height and musculature, not to mention heavy leather clothes and metal armour.

Another demon rose ahead of them and Cassandra ran foreward to kill it, but all Dove could think about was if he had ever seen an elephant walk across ice. They had wide flat feet though, so it would be easy for them right? So long as they didn’t crack the ice.

By the time she had finished killing all the demons (a task that looked to be much easier for her than it was represented as being in the game) Dove had managed to waddle his way over to the snowy staircase leading over the mountain. He sat patiently on the bottom step, mace held loose in between his knees, watching the fight, but none of them noticed him at all. Too small or too obviously unthreatening to give more than a glance, especially when Cassandra shouted to keep their attention anytime they started to drift away.

When she finished with the last slug monster he stood up, standing out of her way so that she could ascend the steps first. She didn’t seem tired and he hadn’t seen her get hit even once, but he still apologized for not being any help. “You seemed to have it handled though, I figured I’d get in the way.”

“It is more helpful if you stay out of the way of the demons.” she said gravely. Most of her footprints in the snow were black from demons blood and he made a point to walk around them in case they were slippery. “I can defend myself with no trouble.”

The stairs were very long with uncomfortably high steps, but Dove never seemed to get tired. He looked behind him, the steep dropoff with a frozen river below, covered in the still-oozing corpses of demons. He wondered vaguelly why they didn’t disappear back into the fade, or wherever it was that things like that went. Eventually sounds started to filter down to them, screaming and clanging and demonic shouts and Cassandra made a sound, hurrying her steps.

“You hear the shouting?” she said, turning back, and Dove straightened his back. “Fighting, up ahead. I must help them!”   
  


Not  _ ‘we’ _ , which he was almost certain he remembered her saying in the game. She ran ahead, disappearing over the ridge, and Dove abandoned his dignity to scramble up the rest of the stairs on all fours. No one was at the top waiting. To the right there was another stone bridge, this one entirely on fire somehow, and to the left a destroyed building. A green glow emanated from behind the walls, and when he got closer he could see the rift, peaking out from a dozen feet above the ground. Lightning crackled form it, striking the ground randomly, and it lit the battlefield below it like a spotlight, every shadow and splash of blood a black void. 

There were monsters there, more than he could count at a quick glance, twisting and moving between the people, and it as honestly hard to tell them all apart. A sword or skeletal arm occasionally swung up above the crowd, but largely it was a writhing mass of life and death that made his eyes cross to try and focus on it. He thought he could hear Cassandra’s shouts but he couldn't spot her in amongst all the others. There was also a strangely rhythmic ‘ _ ka-chunk ka-chunk _ ’ sound cutting through the change of swords and screaming of men, which sounded vaguely like a washing machine that had gotten off balance.

He stood at the top of the ridge, clenching his mace, waiting for the battle to turn in the human’s favour, but it didn’t seem to be going that way at all. ‘ _ Does the Inquisitor have to join this fight? _ ’ he wondered, heart pounding with anxiety as he saw one of the fighters crumple. He couldn’t remember. He’d only beaten this game once, he was more of an  _ Origins  _ fan himself. 

Though he’d only beaten  _ that  _ once too-- whenever he woke up he vowed to replay the whole series so he would be less confused. 

He still wasn’t helping. Should he be helping? He should definitely be helping. 

But what could he do? All he had was a stupid little mace and everyong in the battlefield was twice his size!

The hand clutching the mace spasmed suddenly, at the same moment that the field was lit up with lightning once again. He hissed, clutching at his wrist in pain. It felt like his bones were on fire, like they were going to get ripped right out of his skin, the  _ long  _ way. 

“Oh! The rift!” he hissed, feeling momunmentally stupid. Messing with the rifts staggered the demons, right? He hit the ground, grabbing the edge of the drop-off and falling as far as it would let him, only releasing when he had caught his own momentum. The cold snow helped his burning palm and the rest of the fall was only a couple feet so when he released it didn’t hurt at all. The fighting was more terrifying from this angle, massive monsters and unnaturally large men swinging swords as tall as Dove was. He ran as fast as he could around the fray, feeling a little out of control as he did so. Everything felt floaty and unreal, moving much too fast past him, but the closer he got to the Rift the more his hand ached. 

With no good idea of how to activate his hand’s power, he thrust it up towards the light, palm first, and  _ hoped _ .

For a terrifying second he thought he had done it wrong, but suddenly a bolt of lightning cracked towards him, meeting his hand and traveling all the way up, through his arm. It felt like a rope, anchoring itself around his heart, and he gasped in surprise and pain. It vibrated through his body, shaking him from the inside out, chattering his teeth, and he didn’t know what to do to escape it. He could feel the heat of the light, the connection to the rift, physical and real and burning his palm. For lack of any clearer idea, he wrapped his fingers around it and  _ pulled _ .

He couldn’t really see what was happening in front of him, his eyes open but blinded by the light and the pain, but in his minds eye he could see clear as day the way the light closed the hole in the air, like pulling a thread to close a hole in cloth, or tightening a shoelace to make your sneakers tighter. The edges of the air sucked inwards, an intense energy crackling around it, pulling and pulling until with a sharp  _ CRACK  _ the hole and the string both disappeared and nothing was left.

Dove hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him and his heart pounding. He thought that it might not have been beating at all while he was connected to the rift, and whether that meant that he had been dead.

He realized, as he came back to himself, that the fighting was still going on around him, but now it was loud with the screeching of demons rather than humans. He looked over his shoulder in time to see the last creature fall with several swords stuck through it, and a relieved cry went up from all the soldiers, exhausted and weak but glad to finally have this battle be over.

A hand touched his shoulder and he looked to see Cassandra, ruffled but unharmed, leaning over him. “Are you injured?” she asked and he shook his head, though he wasn’t actually certain if it was true. She held out his mace to him and he wondered when exactly he had dropped it. “Your first lesson in weapons training: do  _ not  _ drop your weapon.”

He laughed, breathless still but pleased with himself, taking it from her and sticking the spiky end of it into the ground to help him back to his feet. “Sorry, got a little excited.”

“Second lesson.” A voice from behind him, not familiar really, still garbled with an unrecognizable accent, but cocky in a way that Dove just instantly knew. “Don’t stick the pointy end of your weapon in the ground. Makes it lose its sharp edges.”

Dove turned, and was completely blown away, shattered in an instant, murdered dead at his own feet, because that was fucking _ Varric Tethras _ standing there, in the flesh. Reddish blonde hair, shirt open above his furry chest and thick brown leather jacket, he looked exactly like he ought to look.

Except… he wasn’t a dwarf.

Dove blinked hard, standing tall, looking again, but no, he was right, Varric was an inch or two taller than  _ him _ . And while Dove had always thought of himself as being roughly scarecrow shaped, all limb and leg with nothing sturdier than his own spine to hold him up, Varric was built like a brick-shithouse, stout and wide with dinnerplate hands and a frankly absurd chin. He walked up close, and sure, okay, next to  _ Cassandra  _ he would be a dwarf,  _ yeah _ , he looked perfectly correct next to  _ her _ , but compared to Dove…

Was Dove a dwarf here?

‘ _ Absolutely not, unacceptable, I’m six-foot four, I’d rather fucking die. _ ’

Not that there was anything wrong with being short, of course, but Dove’s only marketable skill on Earth was being tall and he was  _ absolutely  _ unwilling to give that up, even for a fun fantasy adventure.

Varric snapped his fingers, bringing Dove back to the real world. He was grinning in amusement, and Dove could see a gold tooth at the edge of his smile. “Lost you there for a second, kid.” he said with an amused shake of his head. “Lemme guess-- you’ve never seen a Dwarf before?”

“I have.” He said, maybe a little more defensively than necessary, but really, what person living in the real world hadn’t seen a dwarf before? Maybe they hadn’t been properly introduced to one, sure, but  _ seen _ ? There had been a boy in his highschool with dwarfism, though he was in an older grade, and his own sister had only just missed out on the diagnosis by a technicality of half an inch. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just. It's  _ you _ , you know?”

He raised his eyebrows, setting his crossbow over his shoulder, connecting to something on his back. “Me?” he asked, all innocence.

“Yeah!” He looked briefly to Cassandra for support, but she was crossing her arms and looking between them with a shrewd glare. He waved his hands a bit, grasping for words, but he couldn’t think of an easy way to explain himself without sounding stupid or crazy. “Sorry.” he finally said, giving up. “Hard to explain. This is all really confusing.”

“Don’t worry about it, hard to imagine anyone could’ve expected all this.” He waved his hand in a way that encompassed the Breach, the retreating soldiers, Cassandra, and Dove himself. 

Dove was about to agree but Cassandra scoffed. “As I understand it, this  _ child  _ claims to have, in fact, expected all of this.” She said, and it was such a blatant accusation that he froze a little under her glare. He hadn’t thought it in words, but a part of him had sort of been expecting her to trust him more now that he had closed a Rift, but apparently it only made her more suspicious.

“Not a child.” he said, because it was the only real response he could think of. 

“Do  _ not  _ start on that again!”

Varric snorted, apparently unphased by it all. “What’re you gonna do, Seeker? Put him in time out?”

“Speaking of time, I believe we ought to use ours wisely.” 

He turned excitedly, remembering that yes,  _ Solas  _ was supposed to be here as well, but amongst the crowd of humans shuffling towards the nearby fort to tend their wounds Dove couldn't spot him. They were all so fucking obserdly tall it was throwing him off, but no, he knew what Solas looked like for sure, green and pale and thin with a shiny bald head, he ought to know him  _ anywhere-- _

“Here.” He spoke and Dove’s eyes latched onto the form that stepped forward, mouth dropping open in shock. While Varric was picture-perfect and Cassandra almost unnaturally natural, Solas was not right at  _ all _ . “Are you well? You appear to have taken a shock.”

“It’s just.. My hand.” He said, like an idiot, and the stranger's brows creased, stepping forward and kneeling down before him, holding out his own large hand.

“May I?” he asked, and Dove, having backed himself into a corner, obliged.

The hand holding his own, turning it over and pressing lightly at the swollen flesh on either side of the Mark, was dark, a similar shade to Dove’s own, rich brown and well weathered from whatever adventuring he had been doing since waking up from his long nap. He wore a thick, massive, fur and leather cloak that brushed the ground when he stood but crumpled around him like a mountain from where he now kneeled. He was easily large and wide enough to block the wind from hitting Dove, but he still shivered slightly as he found himself eye-to-eye with what looked like a cat's skull, woven into the man’s thick braids and sitting atop his head like a crown.

“Is it better now?” Solas asked, and Dove nodded, though he hadn’t noticed the man doing anything in particular. He stood again, one hand going into his pocket and the other holding a large and jagged mage, leaning on it like a walking stick. He tilted his head as he looked down at Dove, intensely curious, and Dove wondered briefly if he ought to look away first. “I had theorized that your Mark might be able to close the sky, but I hadn’t been certain. It seems I was correct.”

“So it may be able to stop the spread of the Breach?” asked Cassandra and Dove stepped backwards quickly, closer to her shadow, suddenly uncomfortable to have been standing so close to such a massive man. It had been a long time since he had met a man bigger than him, after all, if one didn’t count Feron, but Solas looked too strange to feel familiar in the same way he expected. Varric nudged him with his elbow, giving him an easy smile, and Dove did his best to return it, even though his stomach was twisting with worry. 

“Possibly.” Said Not-Solas, and his eyes were on Dove again, assessing him top to bottom and Dove suspected, finding him lacking. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation in the palm of your hand.”

“Lucky me.”

“Better you than Demons.” Varric said. “Whatever you did to ‘em knocked them flat, keep that up and the four of us’ll cut our way through to the Breach in no time flat.”

“No, Varric!” Cassandra snapped, and it startled Dove slightly. She didn’t really say ‘Varric’ like he knew it, more like  _ ‘Ballick’  _ and an immature part of him wanted to snicker. “While I appreciate your offer to help--” Varric rolled his eyes in a way that made it clear he did not believe that at all “--you have done  _ more  _ than enough already. I will escort the child to the Breach, and when we get there--”

“The second you take your eyes off him he’s gonna get squashed  _ flat  _ by a demon!” Varric waved his arm wide and Dove flinched backwards, barely avoiding getting smacked. “More eyes on the asset, higher likelihood of him making it there in one piece. This isn’t a one-man job, Seeker, and being prideful will just get our only chance of saving the world  _ killed _ .”

“Master Tethras makes a good point.” said Solas with an amused grin. For whatever reason Cassandra seemed to respect his opinion, because she only glared at him for a few seconds before throwing up her arms with a disgusted sound and stomped away, heading for a break in the stone fence.

It took Dove a moment to realize, as he carefully crawled over a barrier at the top of the steps that Solas and Cassandra had easily stepped over, that none of them had actually asked his opinion on the matter. Obviously he would have advocated for bringing them, planted his feet and refused to go any further if Cassandra had overruled him, but not one of them had looked to him to do so. They honestly believed he was a child, and apparently, children didn’t get to have opinions, even ones that Andraste Herself had sent to Thedas to help them.

“Absolute bullshit.” He grumbled, too quietly for Cassandra to hear. He looked down at his body, felt his face with his left hand, his hair, checked beneath his jacket for his uniform shirt, and he was completely certain he was, proportionally, exactly the same as he always was. Twiggy enough for Fashion Week everywhere but on the slight, embarrassing paunch of his lower belly, with long spidery fingers and adult size-10 shoes. He wasn’t a kid, God Dammit!

His quick and angry explorations rediscovered the candy in his pockets, and he pulled a tootsie roll out, shucking it off its wrapping quickly and shoving the candy in his mouth. 

_ Kid _ .  **Bullshit** . Immature,  _ maybe _ , but he was  _ twenty-five _ ! What kind of epic fantasy dream made all the romanceable characters think you were underage?

_ ‘If Bull and Dorian thing I’m  _ **_prepubescent_ ** _ I’m going to  _ **_scream_ ** _ until I wake up.’ _

“You okay? Lookin’ awfully serious all of a sudden over there.”

Dove came back to himself, looking over at Varric who was walking by his side. It was still strange to be eye level with him, since the camera in Inquisition always went out of its way to show any other angle, but his instincts were more interested in the girth of him rather than the height anyways. If he were a stranger at a grocery store Dove would have done everything in his power to avoid him, but this was  _ Varric _ , and he was absolutely  _ delighted  _ to meet him. “Yeah, yeah sorry, a lot is going on and it's not really what I expected.”

“How so?” His voice is easy and casual, and he only glances at him occasionally as they walk. Varric had never been Dove’s favourite character, but with his easy charm and borderline slutty tunic, he felt a little vindicated in being on the side of the fandom that often lamented the fact that he wasn’t romanceable.

Speaking of chest hair, Dove was staring, and he ripped his gaze away, though judging by the wry twist to Varric’ grin he suspected that he hadn’t been quick enough. “How is it different?” He asked, confirming the question, and Varric nodded. “Well it’s colder, for one. Wetter. My hand hurts like hell and everyone thinks I’m a kid, but I guess more or less everything else is right.”

“Well, no one does ‘cold and wet’ quite like Ferelden, that’s for sure.” He laughed a little, but honestly he didn’t look too bothered.  _ Probably the leather coat _ . “I take it that it’s warmer wherever you’re from?”

“Not really. It's a dry cold though, back home, and it’s not so windy, which makes a big difference.”

“And home would be…?”

“Leadville Colorado.”

Varric’s eyes widened and he shook his head a bit. “You said that so confidently, but I didn’t catch a bit of it. Say it again?” 

Dove repeated himself, louder at first, then slower. Varric made a great show of concentration but shook his head. “Just sounds like nonsense, sorry.” He said, shrugging. “ _ Levul-Culudo _ . Must be pretty remote?”

“Not really.” 

“Leadville Corado.” Said Solas, and Dove jumped a bit but yes, of course Solas had heard them, he was only a few steps ahead of them. He looked back at them, but not up, eye level despite the stairs between them. “Is that correct?”

“Just Leadville is fine, you got that part.” He laughed a little, looking ahead. The mountains were parting and another frozen over lake was ahead, the edge of a burning house only just visible. “Demons ahead, don't fall down the stairs before we even get there.”

True to form, a few seconds later Cassandra shouted out a warning, running down the stairs with her sword out and her footing completely stable. Solas hurried after her and King did his best, but both he and Varric struggled to keep up with the unevern, high stairs and their comparatively short legs. As soon as they were near the bottom though Varric dashed forward, running ahead to a ledge that gave him a good shot of the fighting down below, and it occurred to him that maybe he had only been hanging back for Dove’s benefit.

“Get behind me!” Varric called back to him, letting his first arrow fly with a loud  _ ka-chunk _ , an explosion echoing back across the ice along with a demonic screech. Dove hurried up beside him, on his left where he wasn’t aiming, and looked down over the edge. 

Several of the massive demons they had faced before crawled and stretched across the ice, reaching for Cassandra with babadook arms. The ones in front of her were quickly cut down and just as quickly replaced, but others seemed smarter, moving around behind. Before he could think to say anything an arrow lodged in the back of the one he was watching, and it screamed, throwing back its head, twisting around and starting up the hill towards them.

“Uh?” Dove said, taking a step back.

“I see it.” Varric shot another arrow through its face, and the monster crumbled to the ground. “See? Me and Bianca got you.”

He said the name in such a strange way that Dove wouldn’t have recognized it at all if he hadn’t already known the name. “Cool crossbow.” he said and Varric grinned, already sliding another arrow in.

A bright flash of light hit one of the monsters, ice crawling up its body and freezing it in place. Another light and hits head was in blue flames, melting before it could even scream, collapsing in a half-standing position as the ice held it in place. Dove followed the path of the lights until he spotted the hulking form of Solas at the far end of the battlefield, unrecognizable from a distance. He held his staff at his side, both hands on the shaft, magic bursting out from the end in straight, uncurving lines. It looked more like Rambo holding an M60 than a magical wizard's staff and something bright and indignant lit up in Dove’s chest.

“What the hell?” He asked, watching as the tip of Solas’ staff shone a bright red, only for him to point it upwards, the light flying up and crashing down into the monsters like a bomb, sending them all to the ground.

“Amazing, right?” said Varric, his voice barely shuddering at the powerful recoil of his weapon. “Mage’s are really something else.”

Dove furrowed his brow but decided not to argue, but inside he was furious. What the hell was this, Dragon Age  _ Origins _ ? No flash, no  _ pizzazz _ ! Where were Inquisitions gloriously impractical swings, pirouettes, and twirls? What the hell kind of dream  _ was  _ this?!

By the time the battle was over dove was positively fuming, arms crossed over his chest and mace drooping sadly, half frozen to death with wet sneakers and a hurt ego. He knew what was going on here, at least, and he dwelled up on it as he followed the group across the frozen lake, littered with bodies and dotted with holes.

This wasn’t an epic, fun, power-fantasy type of dream. This was a fucking Stress Dream. Every character he liked was going to treat him like a baby, magic was both lame  _ and  _ entirely out of his grasp, and to top it all off Solas was actually kind of hot this time, which made him being straight  _ infinitely  _ more tragic.

And now they were climbing more icey mountain steps.  _ Joy of Joys _ . Other people dreamed about sex with Mads Mikkelsen or floating on bubblegum clouds, but Dove’s subconscious was out to ruin his good time, like  _ always _ .

He took out another candy, popping it in his mouth and shoved the paper into his pocket to join the others. He knew it was just a dream but a lifetime of avoiding littering was a hard habit to break.

“Can I get one of those?” Varric asked, pleasant and friendly, and Dove pulled one out to drop in his massive palm. Rather than eating it though, the dwarf played with it for a few seconds, looking at the writing on the wrapper before shoving it into one of his pockets. “For later.” he reassured him, when Dove raised an eyebrow. “Hey, so it occurs to me that I’ve introduced Bianca but not myself. Terrible lapse in judgement, my apologies. My name is Varric Tethras.”

“I’m Dove.” He said, reaching out to shake his hand and dear fuckign god, he had thought a hundred times now that his hands were huge but they truly were massive, like tigers' paws, wrapping entirely around Dove’s fingers, warm even through his gloves. 

“Dove.” Varric repeated, and he got it right of course because it was the easiest name on earth. “Well, nice to meet you. Too bad it wasn’t under better circumstances.”

He smiled back, because even if the dream wasn’t what he’d hoped it  _ was  _ still nice to meet him. “Back at you, Varric.”

Varric gave a dramatic wince at that, a hand to his heart. “Ouch, ooh, no, try that again, it wasn’t even close.”

“Varric?”

That earned him another silly expression, this time accompanied with a laugh, before he repeated his name again. Dove knew for a fact that he  _ could  _ say ‘Ballick Tetris’, but he also refused to do so. On  _ principle _ . He could understand their stupid made-up accents, more or less, but that didn’t mean he had to participate. 

“Varric Tethras.” He said again, exactly as it had been said in the games, a million times, in exact Standard American, rather than his own natural accent which he had been told before was faintly southern. “Sorry, your accent is so strange and magical to me, I’m afraid this is the best I can do.”

“If we both survive this I’ll teach it to you, pinky promise.” If Varric could tell that Dove was messing with him he didn’t let on, and he actually went as far as to stick out his pinky finger. Dove snorted and wrapped his own around it, like a snake wrapping around an oak tree.

“My name is Solas, if we are doing introductions.” The man apparently was not physically capable of refraining from eavesdropping, possibly because of the size of his ears but more likely because he was just nosey. Dove was slightly annoyed to notice that he hardly said his name differently from the games at all.  _ One thing to make him recognizable, even if nothing else was, apparently. _ Willing to make nice, Dove parroted the name back to him, which made the giant smile. “I was the one who tended to you after you fell from the fade, though I doubt you remember me.”

“Thank you.” he replied, for lack of anything better to say. Solas nodded in acknowledgement. “I didn’t think I was hurt, though?”

“Oh no, you were black and blue, kid.” Varric protested, shaking his head. Dove looked at him in surprise because he honestly felt fine, something close to ‘ _ the best he’d felt in years’ _ if he didn’t count his right arm. “Plus when you hit the ground your heart wasn’t beating, which means you were literally  _ dead _ .”

Well his heart was certainly pounding  _ now _ , in time with the pulses moving through his hand. “I.. don’t remember that.” He said, looking to Solas for confirmation. “How did you restart it?”

“Electricity spell.” He said simply, and when he saw Doves brows furrow he smiled in amusement. “Like lightning, but from my hands.”

“I know what electricity is.”

“Did you know it can sometimes restart a heart?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting, if true.” he didn’t think Solas really believed him, but honestly Dove did know enough about defibrillators to back up what he was saying. “I wonder how much else you know?”

Cassandra spoke up from ahead, revealing that she was just as nosey as Solas. “He claims to know a great deal, but agreed only to tell us  _ after  _ he closes the Breach.”

She sounded pretty bitter about it, and considering that she was bringing it up every time the others got close to asking, Dove was willing to bet that she was trying to make sure that she was the first to hear about it. “That is what I said.” He agreed, because she could stomp him into a greasy little smear on the ground if she set her mind to it and he didn’t want this dream to end too quickly. “We’ll get to the-- the crowded place soon and then we’ll be pretty much done.”

“The Foreward Camp.” she corrected, but she seemed satisfied, kicking up her speed a little, which the rest of the party was forced to match. 

A hill, more stairs,  _ another  _ hill and  _ yet more stairs _ later, they came upon a contingent of soldiers fighting off a small flood of demons. Solas and Cassandra got to work attacking them from behind, and Varric pulled Dove out of the way, catching any stragglers with Bianca. “Think you can do that Magic Hand thing again?”

He didn’t know why exactly, but the particular thrum of tension going into his arm didn’t quite feel tense  _ enough _ . “Need to be a bit closer.” He said, standing up to look at the thinning crowd, the Rift, and the corpses. “Cover me.”

“Wait, wait, stay by me!” Varric's tone was forceful but already behind him as Dove practically flew over a low stone wall and into the fray, behind the demon's backs. He moved the mace to his left hand, flexing his fingers as he dashed out of the way of a strange, half-invisible form, ready to strike if need-be but his attention focused only on the bubbling hole above them.

The moment he could feel the strange thrumming pressure go from his fingertips to his chest he threw out his hand, catching the strange hot lightning and yanking it tight. It hurt, worse than he remembered, shaking him inside-out and blinding him. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet or make out the battlefield in front of him, couldn't feel his own skin other than in the knowledge that it, that all of him, was on  _ fire _ .

_ ‘Do you know what electricity is?’ my ASS. _

The hole closed with an explosive expulsion of built up energy, and he hit the ground, shaking and instantly relieved. A loud _ka-chunk from_ Varric’s crossbow and a cut off demonic screech, something heavy struck the earth right behind him, shaking his bones. He’d have jumped if he had the energy, but instead he just flopped over onto his hip, turning back and watching with interest as the life went out of the monster's eyes.

_ ‘Everything else here sucks, but at least the demon’s fucking  _ _ own’ _ . He thought, trying to commit the shape of the monsters head to his memory. Maybe he could try to recreate it when he woke up, it would make a  _ really  _ sweet Halloween decoration.

“Hey so what part of ‘stay behind me’ did you misunderstand? Just askin’ for next time.” Varric yanked the arrow from the back of the demon's head, rubbing the end in the snow to clear it of blood before dropping it back in the pouch on his side. He didn’t seem particularly mad, which was good, because Dove was still a little too dazed to deal with being yelled at.

“I’m an adult, I had the power to help and so I did.” He said, standing up on wobbly feet. It was still very weird to have Varric be the same height as him, somehow much weirder than everyone else being giants. “Thank you for having my back though.”

“Yeah well just so you know, a  _ real  _ adult woulda measured his ability to help versus the importance of his safety to the overall ‘close the Breach’ plan. Unless of course Andraste has another kid with a glowing hand squirreled away in the fade? Yaknow, in case of the first one getting busted?”

He noticed Solas standing near them, far enough away that he clearly intended not to loom but not quite succeeding. Cassandra was speaking with the soldiers, who were filing past a large set of strong wooden doors. She called them over after a moment and the three of them filed in after her.

Foreward Camp was a bridge, absolutely massive and wide, leading from one mountaintop to another. It probably could’ve handled two lanes of cars driving on it, but instead was lined with cots full of injured, many tables and crates full of weapons. They all had to stick to the middle to keep out of everyone else’s way, but Dove figured that it was no great loss. They were probably much higher up in the air than Dove was really comfortable contemplating, considering that he wasn’t even sure how medieval fantasy characters had managed to build it in the first place. Wasn’t this all set near the Urn of Sacred Ashes? Had this bridge only been built in the last ten years? Not a thought he wanted to keep on thinking.

“You scared of heights, Dove?” Asked Varric, who had apparently appointed himself as his keeper.

He shook his head. “Just don’t like Falling Dreams.”

“Dreams?”

Someone up ahead called Cassandra’s name and the group all hurried foreward, to a man standing at a table covered in scrolls and random bric a brac. He was older, harried looking, and sickly pale beneath the green light of the nearby Breach, with long clean robes in Chantry red and white. He spoke and his voice was absolutely incomprehensible, like someone doing their absolute worst and most offensive scottish accent. Whatever he said ended in a question, though, his eyes meeting Doves with far too much intensity for his liking, before flicking to Varric and Solas with much more suspicion.

“He is well.” Cassandra answered gravely, her own gaze directed at the sky. “The mark on his hand closed the rifts we passed along the way, and he believes that he can stop the spread of the Breach itself.”

“Only stop it?” A woman behind the man, and Dove jumped slightly as he remembered who the both of them were. Leliana! Leliana and--  _ some guy _ ! A named character he couldn’t remember at all, but more importantly, Leliana! 

He leaned sideways, trying to look around the man, but he could hardly see a thing. She dressed much like the man did, a sleeveless red dress with a golden sunburst across the chest, but a red hood obscured her face and where the man had crisp white sleeves Leliana wore leather and chainmail. Actually, the more he looked at her, the more it looked as though the red dress wasn’t meant to be there at all, just something that she had thrown over the rest of her clothes, so that she could be recognized as a part of the Chantry.

She turned her head and looked back at him, the light catching her face for a moment, and she looked exactly like… some regular, pretty lady. Suspicious and tired, yes, and he knew that she was a shrewd and powerful player in this universe, but she just seemed like.. A lady. No heartstopping revelations there, apparently. 

He reminded himself that there was a decent chance that she was secretly and undead zombie lady, a murder of crows held together by hotglue and magic, but she really did just look… Normal.

He tried not to be disappointed. 

The man was arguing, waving his hand, making demands, but Cassandra only crossed her arms in a complete dismissal. “We are going to the Breach and you do not have the power to stop us.” She said, flat and unyielding. He barked out something else, maybe  _ ‘wild’  _ or  _ ‘child’ _ , but she wasn’t impressed, raising her voice to speak over him. “It was not  _ my  _ suggestion, it was  _ his _ ! And I will not waste more time standing here,  _ arguing _ , when you do not have the  _ authority  _ to order  _ me  _ to do  _ anything _ !”

“It is hopeless!” The man shouted back, and that Dove could understand, loud and clear, his voice breaking halfway through. He said something else about  _ ‘retreat’  _ and  _ ‘temple’ _ , shaking his head, before waving a hand once again at Dove while saying  _ ‘Andraste’ _ . The others were all looking at him now too, and Dove turned away to look instead at the Breach.

Was it growing? It was probably growing. That was why he was here, after all.

Varric nudged him with an elbow, murmuring quietly. “I think they are all waiting for an answer, kid.”

His stomach dropped, then climbed into his throat. He had no idea what part of the conversation they were currently in, he hadn’t heard a question, but he remembered at least how it was supposed to end. “Let’s go to the Breach.” He said, trying to uncurl from his defensive hunch to look a bit less small for a moment. It didn’t seem to be quite enough though, so he cast his mind quickly back to the game, scrambling for details. “Um. Over the mountain? You lost some soldiers there but we can go rescue them along the way, which will help against the demons at the Breach itself, right?”

They were staring and Dove got the impression that he had answered the wrong question after all. The man seemed absolutely confused and shocked, until Leliana leaned in and repeated what he had said. Afterwards the man seemed even more confused and upset, protesting, waving his arms, until ultimately dropping his head and beginning to mumble out what was probably a prayer.

More discussion between the tall folk, all too quick and mumbly for Dove to make out, and then they were on their way, marching across the bridge and soon, yet another long set of stairs. Things were bone-silent between the four of them, for many long minutes, only the blasting cold wind and the crunching of snow accompanying their journey. Once again Cassandra took the lead, Solas behind her, and Varric at Dove’s side.

A tall structure hugged the side of the mountain ahead, stone towers holding up wooden scaffolding, a couple hundred feet worth of ladders that he remembered suddenly that they were going to have to climb. They had only just stepped onto the wooden ramp that would twist its way up to the base of the thing, and already Dove’s teeth were chattering. 

He slipped on a slippery bit of planking, windmilling his arms and just barely caught himself by slamming his mace into the bridge below. The wood cracked terribly beneath the blow, but Dove was more or less upright so he counted it as a win. Solas was looking back but only Varric had stopped, staring at the impact in the ramp quizzically. “They really cheaped out on the materials for this place, didn’t they?” 

“Right?” Dove yanked his mace back out, grunting when it came out more easily than expected. He might have ended up falling backwards anyway if Varric hadn’t reached out to grab his shoulder. He muttered a thanks, picking up his feet and hurrying to catch up with the others. “Sorry about-- all this. I guess I picked the way-more-miserable path.”   
  


“Hey, don’t be sorry, you wanted to help the scouts. No shame in that.”

“Not like it even matters, considering they aren't real.”

Varric just hummed, noncommittal, which was all the confirmation Dove needed that his subconscious wasn’t interested in arguing the ethics of whether Dream Lives mattered. “If it’s not real, then what is it?”

“What, you mean everything?”

“Sure.”

“Overall, probably about my lack of responsibility, and how giving that up is tantamount to giving up my own agency, something-something civil liberties and caring about other people, something-something be the change you want to see in the world.”

“What?” Varric was looking at him like he was crazy but Dove just shook his head, growling to himself and rubbing his face, yelping when the light on his palm touched his skin and gave him a shock.

“Nothing! This! Everything!” He snapped, digging into his pocket until he found his plain black work-issue cloth mask, pulling it quickly over his face. It helped with the windchill just a little bit, at least, and maybe would protect him from shocking himself again. “Ignore everything I said, let's get this over with, I want to get to the fun parts before I wake up okay?”

They reached the ladder and Cassandra and Solas were already halfway up. Varric waved Dove on ahead, promising to catch him if he fell, which didn’t help much. The first ladder was fine, cold and sturdy with steps just far enough to be uncomfortable, and the second not much better, but by the fifth one Dove was shaking all over, hands stiff from the chill and every burst of wind rocking him absolutely terrifying.

“You’re doin’ great kid, just don’t look down!” Varric called when Dove froze midway up the tallest ladder they had yet climbed, not out of fear but because his hand was spasming and he didn’t trust him it to hold him.

Dove wasn’t stupid. He had seen cartoons. Despite the immense temptation to look down the moment Varric said it, he instead looked outwards, across the jagged mountain range. He could see the bridge they had crossed before, the one with Leliana and the Chantry man. He could just barely see the specks of people walking across it, the beds where the injured and dying lay, and though he knew none of this was real, his frantic heart suddenly told him ‘ _ they would never reach you in time to help if you fell _ ’.

Of course, that bridge was now considerably far below him, too, so surviving a fall from where he was now wasn’t exactly an option.

A gust of wind rocked him against the ladder, much like a mean spirited child giving you a shake when you leaned over a ledge, taunting the fact that they could easily push you over and kill you if they wanted to, at any moment.

He locked his elbow around the next step of the ladder and hauled himself up, desperate to be anywhere but on this fucking  _ stupid  _ ladder.

There were demons at the top of the ladder, of course, as well as an old abandoned mine, but with Cassandra's sword and Solas’ fire powers neither were too frightening, especially once they were inside and away from the wind. Deeper in there were larger classes of demons, massive things with armoured heads and feathers sprouting from their backs, but despite the darkness the team of fighters hardly seemed to break a sweat dispatching them. Every swing of Cassandra’s sword cut through the beasts like butter, easier than they would cut through a human if he had to guess, and the wounds seemed to kill demons in the same way they would kill anyone else. No health bars, no game physics, Cassandra was a brutally efficient warrior who was exactly in her element. What monsters Cassandra didn’t slice in half Solas sent scattering with explosions or trapped in ice, and nearly every one of Varric's shots was a one-hit-kill.

It was pretty cool to watch, but Dove was antsy and impatient and cold and honestly getting pretty hungry, so he wished, silently, for things to hurry up.

When the last demon fell Dove was already scurrying his way up the next set of stairs. “Looks like there are some torches lit ahead.” he said, when Cassandra stomped her way up beside him, and then ahead. Dove hurried to catch up but she was walking too fast and Dove was too cold to run.

“From the scouts I assume.” Said Solas, easily keeping pace with him. He smiled down at Dove and Dove slowed to let him pass, once again with Varric at the back of the path.

Varric patted him on the back. “So they definitely came through here.” he said, reloading his Bianca.

“They are outside the tunnel though, we have to hurry if we want any of them to still be alive.”

“You got it.”

By the time they exited the tunnel Dove had fallen behind and had to outright run to keep up. He was panting and freezing and miserable, but at least his mask was keeping his nose warm and he was starting to not mind the idea that he would wake up soon, without having closed the Breach or had wild fantasy orc sex, because honestly, if he had to  _ run  _ to earn that then it wasn’t exactly worth it after all.

He was getting a stitch in his side, and cramps in his calves and was beginning to lose his thoughts to fantasies about what he would have for breakfast (a hot bowl of oatmeal? A bowl of ramen? Maybe get a little fancy and have toast and eggs) when a scream rang out ahead.

“The scouts!” shouted Cassandra, and internally Dove wished her luck, she was a hundred feet ahead and he wasn’t even entirely certain he was going to make it that far, let alone to the scouts themselves, before he would need to sit down and take a break.

He did make it there eventually, staggering, clutching his side and cold sweat probably turning to ice on his temples. Cassandra was distracted talking to the scouts but Varric and Solas were both watching him, so he stood straight and made a show of being fine, even if behind his mask he was silently gasping.

“Are you alright?” Solas asked, and his face was glowing green from the small Rift hanging above them, twisting but very nearly beautiful when it wasn’t busy spitting out monster.

“Yep.” He said, and because he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, lifted up his Mark to close the tiny hole in the sky before anything else could decide to drop through.

A minute later, when he was laying on his back in the snow, grateful for the excuse to rest, he thought to himself ‘ _ that hurt way worse than I remember. _ ’

Solas and Varric both hovered over him, talking amongst themselves, but Dove kept his eyes closed and just wished for them both to go away.

“He’s fine.” Solas announced, after a minute or so, and the strange prickly feeling that Dove had attributed to his magic hand suddenly went away. “Undernourished, with a weak heart maybe, but those are problems that can wait until later.”

Dove cracked open his eyes, glaring at the stranger, and oh, maybe he could see a little bit of Solas’ original face there, if he squinted, but that didn’t mean he got to do whatever he wanted. “Did you just do magic on me?”

“I did.” Solas didn’t seem too guilty about it either. “Some fluids would also do you some amount of good. Did they give you any when you woke up? It must have been several hours by now.”

“No.” Varric was already pulling a flask off his side, and whether it was full of alcohol or water, Dove didn’t want any of it, pushing it away as he sat up. “No thanks, I’d rather not have to pee while i'm here if i can help it.”

“Oh? And where do you expect to be afterwards?” If he was trying not to sound judgemental he was doing a much worse job of it than Varric, but Dove wasn’t in the mood to be condescended to by a video game character. 

“Leave me the fuck alone.” He snapped, pushing himself to his feet and walking away from them, to wait alone at the head of the path. He wanted to say something funnier, or meaner, something along the lines of ‘ _ your mamas house _ ’ or ‘ _ wouldn't you like to know, weather-boy _ ?’, something he probably wouldn’t understand but would recognize as an insult, but he was still wary of suddenly flipping a switch that turned this stress dream into a proper nightmare.

Scared of his own fucking dreams, what kind of idiot was he? If it got scary he would wake up right away and it would be over, so what the hell was his problem anyways?

‘ _ It's all just dream logic. _ ’ he reminded himself, forcefully, even as another spasm went through his hand. ‘ _ It feels real so you're reacting like it's real. It’ll all be better in the morning _ .’

Back to his own little apartment above his boyfriends parents garage, warm and cramped and homey, where Michael would be waiting to break up with him.

A thought occurred to him and he perked up a little. ‘ _ Maybe I dreamed that part! _ ’ he thought, and though a part of him greatly doubted it the rest of him instantly latched onto the idea, piling in like a warm blanket, surrounding it and protecting it from blowing away. ‘ _ I dreamed about work, after all, so who's to say I didn't dream about any number of things? _ ’

By the time the others had come to meet him, both the regular team and also a dozen or so scouts, he felt re-energized. The scouts were looking at him with a mix of awe and trepidation, but Cassandra seemed to be standing tall and proud, more confident something close to a smile at the edge of her lips. “The temple is at the bottom of the next valley, Dove.” She said, and it turned out that there were, in fact, people in the world that could mispronounce his name. It was oddly heavy and thick on her tongue, but he could tell that she was trying to be nice so he didn’t correct her, just nodding his head and following.

There was a ladder that first the scouts, then Cassandra, slid down with the speed and confidence of acrobats on a pole. Dove looked over the edge of the railing as one after another flew down it, mouth agape. “Your turn.” Said Varric, when there were still scouts waiting, and Dove laughed, absolutely refusing to follow in their footsteps. “What, you’ve never gone down a ladder before?”

“Of course I have-- I’ve  _ climbed  _ down,  _ carefully _ .”

“You can hang on to my shoulders while I go down?” suggested Solas, and Dove made an ‘x’ with his forearms, refusing outright, before goign to the ladder and carefully levering himself over the edge.

“And you say you’re an adult.” Laughed Varric, standing at the top and leaning over to watch, apparently completely unworried about toppling over and breaking his neck.

Dove what gearing up to say something cutting, something to completely fucking rip Varric a new asshole, but he discovered a few rungs down that the reason everyone had been sliding was because the ladder was completely covered in ice. Rather than a sassy comeback, which any good MGiT heroine ought to have in spades, all Dove managed to do was yelp like a dog who’s tail had been stepped on as he plummeted to the ground below.

A million hands seems to reach out and grab him at once, hot fingers wrapped round every inch of his body, head to foot, and while it was still jarring he didn’t hit the ground at all. No broken bones, spine, and strangely enough, no waking with a start in his own bead covered in sweat with his stomach in his throat. Above him Solas leaned over the railing, his staff pointed straight downward, and though his heart was pounding and he felt lightheaded from fear, it wasn’t hard to guess what happened. 

“I’ve got him!” Cassandra called from just below, and the spell released, Dove falling only a foot or so more into her waiting, gigantic hands.

They looked at one another, eye to eye for the first time since meeting. Dove was not sure if he was delighted to be in the arms of a powerful, giant woman or offended about being held as easily as a purse-puppy by a woman who was completely indifferent to whatever amount of masculinity he thought he usually wielded.

Did that make it a little bit hotter? Maybe, but he was going to ignore that level of introspection until later.

“When this is over we will feed you.” She announced, a promise and a dismissal all at once, before setting his feet on the ground and turning away.

When Solas was at his side again, Dove , somewhat by wrote, thanked him for saving him again. “The second time today.” he noted as they all began down what he hoped to by the final set up steps. “I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”

“I am happy to do it. Perhaps once more, before the end, don’t you think?”

Dove snorted out a laugh, though it wasn’t really funny. “You shouldn’t joke with kids about their impending mortality, don't you think?” 

“Oh but you’re not a child, are you?”

Dove laughed again. He wasn’t sure if Solas actually believed him, but maybe he did, and that made him feel a bit better. If any figment of his own imagination was going to be self aware, it would be Solas, wouldn't it?

There was no fighting in the valley below, and he couldn’t remember if that was game accurate or not. More important than the charred wasteland of petrified corpses and crumbled stone, were massive jagged spikes coming up from the ground, several stories tall and laced through with pulsing, glowing light. It looked a bit like a thing he’d seen in a documentary about nuclear waste. The idea that, in the future, people might not be able to read warning signs and so people wanted to surround dangerous areas with things like seas of concrete thorns or hostile spikes, to get across the idea, without the use of language, that death would come to anyone who came too close.

Unfortunately Dove knew right away that he would be the stupid post-apocalyptic tribe-member who died first, because even knowing what it meant, Dove suddenly wanted nothing more than to press his hand against the spike and see if they were warm.

“This was the Temple of Sacred Ashes.” said Solas as they all stood, staring at what was little more than a doorway sat all by itself atop a mountain.

“What’s left of it.” from Varric.

Dove wondered vaguely what had happened to the strange ghosts that guarded it. Could a ghost be killed? Common wisdom said that destroying a haunted house destroyed the ghost. He hardly remembered the puzzle though. “What happened to the Urn?”

“Disappeared years ago, as I understand it.” said Varric. “If it ever existed in the first place.”

“They did exist.” Snapped Cassandra, turning to glare at Varric, who held up his hands in defense.

“Hey all I’m saying is that the only person to ever actually see it was The Hero of Ferelden.”

“Leliana saw it as well- she was there! She told me as much. They were  _ real _ .”

“Cassandra’s right.” Dove doubted they would care about his opinion, but he didn’t like it when someone so much larger than him started shouting. “The Warden used some of the ashes to heal the Arl of Redcliffes sickness. Just a pinch.”

“Just a pinch.” Varric repeated. “Then where did the rest of them go?”   
  
“I literally just asked  _ you _ , how should I know?”

The squabled lightly, no real heat to it, as they descended the final steps into what was left of the Temple. A rift sat there, massive, pulsing and glowing. Hardly any stone was near it, like it had carved a hole directly into the mountain and blown everything away. The moment Dove laid eyes on it the muscles in his arm began to jerk, flexing and pulsing outside his own control. He was able to keep the arm down at his side, but the half-forgotten mace slipped out of his hold. He picked it back up with his left hand and walking to the edge of the pathway to stare at the writhing rift.

“It looks almost alive.” said Varric, voice quiet with awe. 

Solas looked down at Dove, his gaze intense. “It’s much larger than the others.” He said, as though it wasn’t already obvious. “Does that mean you can seal it from further away? From here?”   
  
“Can’t seal it, just stop it.” Dove corrected, and he put out his arm, leaning over the railing, as far as he could go. The vibrations hummed up his bones, hot and unnatural, but they hardly reached his shoulder, let alone his chest. He forced his fingers to close, but there was nothing to grab, the connection weak and hardly tangible. “Nope. Gotta get down there.” he finally admitted, sliding back to the ground.

Leliana arrived and Cassandra and her spoke briefly, orders to surround the breach with fighters, to defend Dove, to be careful. Questions and answers flew around, two feet above his head, and he ignored them all, watching the way his right hand shook. It was like the Breach was an energy source and his hand was getting overloaded, jerking and twitching with excess power.

“You okay, kid?” asked Varric, and Dove just nodded. “Not getting cold feet? A lot of people are counting on you, so it’s not embarrassing if you are worried, or overwhelmed by it.”

“More worried about the Pride Demon than the people, if I’m honest with you.” He said. It was only partly a lie. He was thinking more about how badly connecting his hand to the giant rift would hurt, and whether that would be enough to wake him up. “Also kinda wondering what idiot decided to carry me all the way down to Haven. My feet hurt, I’m tired, and we haven't even started yet.”

The troops were in place and the four of them began to hurry along what counted as a pathway, circling the pit in the mountain on the way to the rift.

The deep and resonant voice of Corypheus echoed out around them, cold otherworldly. Dove had no better luck understanding him this time than he had in the caverns, but with context he could guess. ‘ **_Prepare the sacrifice. Keep her still_ ** **.’**

“Who is that?!” Shouted Cassandra, as though expecting to find him around the next rock, her head whipping around to find him.

“It’s a memory.” said Dove, hurrying closer, only huffing a bit from exhaustion. “Corypheus, he’s the one that did all this.”

Cassandra turned to him, her face tight with anger, until the Divine’s cry echoed around them, full of agony and fear. “ **_Someone! Help me_ ** !”

Dove was braced for it, but still nearly stumbled when his own voice cracked through the air.  **“What the** **_hell_ ** **do you fuckers think you’re** **_doing?”_ **

**_“Go! Get help! Warn them!”_ **

A loud, cracking thump, a furious shout.

**_“No! Fool Woman! Don’t you touch it!”_ **

They had reached the bottom of the basin, standing directly beneath the rift. From the ground rose great spectral beings, glowing eyes and featureless faces. One with its arms out at it’s side, crucified, the other dark and shifting, twisted, inhuman. Each was a hundred feet tall and the soldiers shouted in alarm, leaping out of the way as they swayed and moved through the air. 

“Echos of the past.” said Solas, standing still as the spectral monsters moved through him. They seemed entirely unaffected by the physical world, but Dove still backed up to avoid the ghostly points of the Divine’s feet. They were moving, swaying, acting out their parts. Dove’s form was less stable than the others, and much higher, and further away, a wisp that leapt and fell, interacting with nothing, too indistinct to learn from if you didn’t already know what had happened. “The Fade is close, here. Spirits are reenacting it.”

Dove wished that the spirits would do it a little smaller and closer to the ground, so that he didn’t hurt his neck craning it upwards. “Are they trying to help us understand, or are they just playing?”

“Something between the two, I think. Spirits understand our world through the emotions that cross over, and they experience it with repetition, reliving those events that were important enough to bleed over. What did you feel, when you experienced this? Do you remember?”   
  


“Confusion, fear, responsibility. Corypheus was so huge and jagged, I didn't recognize him, but the Divine was.. Just an old woman. I wanted to help her.”

“She called out to you and you tried to help.” said Cassandra, with an air of finality. “This… Corypheus.. He is the one responsible.”

The spirits disappeared suddenly, and a painful pulse went through Dove’s arm, making him see stars. All the way into the chest, shaking him to the core, he knew he was close enough. “This one is different. Big stuff’s waiting on the other side. It’ll get nasty.”

Cassandra and Leliana called instructions to the waiting troops, all readying their weapons. Varric stood at Dove’s side, and gave him an encouraging smile. “You got this, Big Stuff.”

The moment he lifted his hand, the rift burst open, like a water balloon burst from the tip of a pin. A wave of pure energy flowed out, filling the basin up and choking them with the taste of it. At the same time a massive impact rocked the ground, the Pride Demon landing in the world with all the grace and menace of a power rangers villain. Twenty feet tall, covered in horns and spikes, with six eyes, it looked down on them and  _ laughed _ .

For a long and horrible moment, its eyes all turned to Dove, specifically, and he felt incredibly, horrifically,  _ small _ .

He hadn’t really expected to be afraid of the pride demon, not really, but when a dozen arrows failed to scratch his scales, when Cassandra’s sword bounced off its shins, when even Solas’ explosive magic barely made it stumble, cold terror began to drip down his spine.  _ Too big, too big! _ He thought, heart pounding, taking a step back, watching its slow advance like the inevitable foot of Godzilla.

“The Hand Thing, Dove, don’t freeze up!” Shouted Varric and Dove put up his arm, more instinct than thought, and shouted in pain when it connected.

It was different this time, hotter, more slippery, he grabbed the thread connecting him to the light and pulled, but though the hole, the war, the air itself squeezed tighter in his chest, the thread itself snapped beneath his hand. 

The ground beneath him shook as he came back to himself, but that was the Pride demon, collapsing to his knees. Cassandra was already behind him, hacking at the sensitive joints between his armours plates, along with the other troops. A barrage of arrows fell from the sky, as well as fireballs and even rocks. A huge hand grabbed at the back of his jacket, pulling him to unsteady feet. “Come on kid lets move.” Varric said, quick and tight, yanking at Dove’s jacket so that he was forced to follow. They had been too close before, apparently, or maybe the hail of ammunition was making him nervous. Either way the dwarf didn’t stop moving until they were near the edge of the basin, their backs practically pressed against the sturdy stone walls.

“You didn’t quite close it.” Varric pointed out helpfully as the pride demon got pack to his feet. Lightning crackled form the creatures fingers, not quite a whip, but an arc, traveling between the soldiers, each of them falling to the ground without so much as shouting.

“Big hole. Needs more thread.” Dove said through panting breath and chattering teeth. He didn’t even really know what he was talking about, but more creatures were pouring through the rift, long-arms screeching women with gaunt and stretched out faces. 

He was exhausted and his heart was pounding like crazy, but he put out his arm again, grabbing that tunouse thread and yanking it, as hard as he could.

I hurt worse that time, and he tasted blood, but he thought when his vision cleared that he had kept his feet, only to find himself being dragged away by Varric once again. “Need a second.” he said, through dizziness and blood, and Varric replied but he couldn’t hear him through the ringing in his ears.   
  
He was set down on the ground a few agonizing moments later, and the moment his ass hit cold stone his heart gave a powerful lurch in his chest, suddenly pounding hard enough the feel in his throat. He could practically feel it against his uvula and he put his hand against his mouth to keep from puking. 

“It looks smaller!” shouted Varric, nearly drowned out by the  _ ka-chunk ka-chunk  _ of Bianca’s gears. Dove pushed himself to his feet and nearly feel again as the ground shook beneath his feet. “Can you do it again!?”

“I think my heart stopped.” Dove murmured to himself, pressing his left hand against his chest to keep the wild organ from busting through his sternum. He was seeing spots, too, but maybe that was from the explosions and lightning.

“What was that?!”   
  
Dove lifted his arm, ready to give it a go,  _ one more pull and then it's done _ , but a piercing, pterodactyl-like screech came from nowhere and fire went down his back, hooked into his flesh, and jerked the ground out from under him. He shouted for Varric, panicked and suddenly well beyond terrified. He scrambled at the dirt below him, shouted, kicked, pulled until whatever had him popped free. It grabbed his ankle instead, dragged him further, and Dove managed to roll over, dirt and rocks digging at his burning back.

One of the creatures looked above him, black and terrible, cruel and wild, its arm raised above its head, ready to strike. His mace was gone ( _ what was the point of even carrying it up here only to lose it? _ ) and Varric couldn’t help him ( _ more important things to do that protecting you _ ), the clawed hand came down, sharp and inhuman, terrible, shining in the light of the Breach.

If he’d had time to plan it he would have done something different, kicked or twisted out of the way, never dropped his mace, dragged around a shield until this exact moment and refused to let it go. All those thoughts appeared much too late though, because already his hand was moving, attempting to smack away the claw like an idiot, like someone who had never been in a fight in their life and didn’t know how to use anything but their open palm.

Despite his open palm, despite his bad position, his fear, his distraction, his hand connected with the demon’s, snapping back her wrist like it was made of pretzel rather than bone.

She screeched, her grasp on his ankle tightening even as she reared back in pain, but already Dove’s mind was catching up. He grabbed the broken hand in his own, squeezed it tight and put the full force of his strength into punching the broken wrist square-on. She screamed again, wrenching her arm away and he let her go, scrambling back to his feet and watching with grisly fascination as she twisted up her over-long neck and roared at the sky, angry and confused and pained. There were other monsters on the battlefield, larger and faster and meaner ones, but Dove was stuck in place, riveted and terrified, watching the agony of the one who he had hurt, even as his own back throbbed with pain.

An arrow through the mouth ended her screams and Varric grabbed his arm, shook him, asked if he was okay, and Dove numbly nodded. “I’m fine.” He said, though he felt like he really ought to go to the hospital actually. “It’s not real anyways.”

“Well that rift looks pretty real from where I’m standing!” Varric pulled him, and he let himself be pulled, pushed, manhandled, until he was once again away from demons, his back to the wall. “If there is anything you can do to close that thing the rest of the way I’d really love to see it!”

He could do it, one more time,  _ pull the hole closed and then wake up. _

He reached out his arm, really reached, reached until his bones shook and his eyes went white and his heart pounded so hard that he would fly apart. The string, the pressure, the water balloon, his blood, the Fade’s thin and gossamer edges and his own stuttering heart. He pulled, and  _ pulled _ , felt the string go tight, the world grow hot, the pillow beneath his head and the blankets wrapped around his ankles, Michaels voice, always low and quiet, shouting, roaring,  _ what the hell have you done, why would you do this, people don't do this to each other! _

And then he knew nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems prudent to make certain you know that, despite what the people of Thedas are thinking, Dove is absolutely 100% an adult-looking adult. Thedosian humans are just Very Large people.

The first thing Dove did upon waking was sneeze.

He continues to do that for the next several seconds, and by the time he managed to open his watery eyes he was already expecting the dim little cabin, the hard mattress, and the entirely unwelcome feather pillow. Only in a dream would he be stupid enough to put his head on one, so he didn’t think for a second that he could possibly be back in the waking word. With a miserable grunt he grabbed up the offending object and threw it to the floor.

The hut was freezing cold and almost entirely dark, but for the dim glow of his hand through the blanket. He curled up in a ball beneath it, shuddering miserably, still snuffling and wheezing, wondering what the hell he could have done to deserve  _ feather pillows _ in his own epic fantasy.  _ Yes, subconscious, I do in fact remember the time I stopped breathing at my highschool boyfriend’s house, there is literally no reason to ever,  _ **_ever_ ** _ remind me of that!  _ His whole body itched, which wasn’t a detail he remembered from last time, but not a particularly surprising one. __

_ What is a man, but a miserable pile of hives? _

Curling up didn’t seem to be helping, cramps squeezing at his back and stomach as he was wracked with shivers. Eventually he sat up, bundling the blanket tight around his shoulders and hopped off the bed.

It was dark in the hut, no fire or candles lit, but he could wave his hand around like a dim green flashlight, so it wasn’t too hard to see. He thought it was a bit emptier than he remembered it, no caged birds or boxes of vegetables. Whoever had taken his clothes had left his pants and socks on, so the cold stone floor wasn’t too bad, though the oversized tunic was making its best attempt to slide off his shoulders, possibly in search of a properly sized man to put it to proper use. Another wet, congested cough left his chest, enough to make him gag, and he stood for a few long moments, concentrating only on his breathing, until it felt under control.

He walked to the door, stumbling only slightly on the uneven stone, wrapped his hand around the icy handle, and pulled the door open, hoping to let in some fresher air.

A man stood in the doorway, wide and tall enough to fill it entirely. His height was so unreal that Dove thought he was a statue, because of course no human being could possibly be  _ that  _ tall, but then the man ducked his head and Dove remembered that  _ oh _ , of course, in a dream heights didn’t have to make sense.

“Thought I heard you moving around in there.” Said the stranger, and Dove lifted up his hand to cast light on his face. It wasn’t a terribly flattering angle, but then, the man wasn’t especially handsome either, so it didn’t really matter. “Are you alright? You look a little...”

“Feather pillow. I’m allergic.” He said, shrugging awkwardly. The tunic and blanket both fell off his shoulder and if it weren’t so cold he might have let them stay there.  _ Oh I’m just a sick little debutant, please come to my bedside Mr Large and Virulent stablehand _ . He pulled the blanket back up, huddling further into it as the wind started to seep into his skin. 

The man winced theatrically. “I don’t think anyone knew that. Did you want me to get you something else?”

“Um-” his mind blanked out for a moment, because he didn’t really want anything in particular, just to feel better than he currently did. “It’s a little cold…”

“I’ll light a fire for you.” the man didn’t ask permission, simply stepping forward with all the confidence of someone for whom crowds instinctually parted. Dove jumped out of his way as he barrelled foreward, clutching the door handle and wondering how it was that the floor didn’t fucking shake beneath his massive boots.

By the time Dove returned to the main room a spark had already been lit in the grate, and the man was hunched over, blowing gently on the burning stick to help it catch.

With no real reason to stand on ceremony, considering this wasn’t  _ actually  _ Doves home and the stranger wasn’t  _ actually  _ a guest, he got back onto the bed, huddled beneath his blanket and trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

It took a few minutes for the fire to get going, but it was much faster than Dove had ever managed, even with the use of matchsticks and lighter fluid, so he had no complaints. The stranger stayed kneeling, holding his hands out to the heat, bare arms and thighs flexing in the soft orange light. He had a strong nose and brow, very pleasant to look at in profile, and a clean shaven chin, with dark, straight hair pulled back behind his ears. Dove tried to look away, at the room, the blanket, anything else, but those  _ thighs. _ They drew him in like magnets, meaty, thick, and  _ powerful _ . He wanted to take a nap on those thighs. He wanted to have his skull crushed between them like a fucking watermelon. He wanted to be nestled between them, soft and safe like a baby bird.

He absolutely  _ didn’t  _ want to be caught staring at them, because he couldn’t remember for the life of him if Ferelden was homophobic or not. He thought that the devs said there wasn’t homophobia, but the loading screens in Origins said there wasn’t sexism either and at every turn characters had laughed at the idea of a female Grey Warden.

_ ‘Oghren was probably homophobic.’ _ He couldn’t remember him actually saying anything to that effect, but when Tabris was asleep the man had absolutely (probably) called Alistair  _ some  _ kind of slur.

God it was too cold for thinking. He snuffled miserably and wrapped the blanket a little bit tighter.

“Is that better?” asked the man, and Dove nodded, even though it wasn’t. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“Tell me how and why you are wearing a skirt in this weather.” 

The man laughed, and it was a booming thing, startling in its volume, but very warm. “It’s got thick fur underneath, I’m not insane!” 

“Unbelievable.”

“I think you’re just delicate. Must be hitting you harder, considering your age.”

Dove scoffed in disgust but didn’t bother to argue with a fucking  _ npc  _ of all things. “Why were you hanging around the door in the first place?”

“Guarding it. Making sure no one strange got in.” There was a sunny quality to his smile that said he knew Dove found him plenty strange. He swept out his arm, giving a mock bow, or the closest approximation he could get while still on his knees. “Scout Twibbon, at your service. I’ll be right outside for the rest of the night, so if you need anything at all, just give me a shout.”

“Dove. And thank you. I just want to lay back down, though, I think.”

“Sleeping for three days straight must have been exhausting.” He smiles and gets up, leaving without any fuss, and if Dove watches the way his thighs bunch and shift while he walks away, well, he couldn't be blamed, could he?

_ They don’t make guys like that in the waking world. _

He lay in bed there, alone, silent but for the crackling of the fire, for ages. Slowly the room warmed, and when he curled up on his side the bed wasn’t too uncomfortable. He hoped that it wasn’t stuffed with people-hair, but it felt too soft to be hay. He made a note to himself never to ask anyone the answer to that, resolutely deciding that he was better off not knowing.

He wanted to go back to sleep. He really  _ was  _ tired, and now that he wasn’t covered in hives his body still ached, his back tight and his hand dully throbbing. It wasn’t as bad as he remembered it being before, at least. Either his nerves had gotten used to the twinges and shocks of the Anchor’s magic, or stopping the Breach from spreading had lessened the pain significantly.

_ ‘The Anchor?’ _

The word came easily to him now, but had been out of reach when he’d first woken up. What did that mean, though? Was it holding something down? Corypheus’ orb--  _ Solas’  _ orb-- was meant to tear apart the Veil, so being able to close the tears was probably not its original purpose. It poisoned the Inquisitor after a few years of use, or started to explode, something like that, so it stood to reason that it wasn’t  _ meant  _ to live inside a hand.

A part of himself was annoyed that he had been stupid enough to pick the orb up with bare hands, that he should have recognized the danger and left it alone, but he reminded that voice that none of this was  _ real _ .

It felt pretty real, though. Real enough that his internal clock was nagging at him that sleeping was out of the question. Night shift was baked into his bones, and as tired as he was, he was only starting to get bored from laying in bed.

_ Too cold to get up, too dark to read, no television, everyone is asleep.. What the hell did medieval peasants do to entertain themselves at night? _

The answer occurred to him a moment later and he felt like an idiot for not considering it. 

_ The same exact thing people do in 2020. _

He pulled the blanket up over his head, closed his eyes, and turned to fantasy.

His first few thoughts were about the scout. Those  _ legs _ , that friendly smile, his willingness to help... It was easy to imagine asking him to help warm him up, to be held against that massive chest, his armour dropped to the floor in exchange for skin to skin contact. He wasn’t that bad looking, actually, now that he thought about it. He wasn’t a movie star, but he was definitely Small Town Sexy.

He dropped the idea after letting himself savour it for a few seconds though, because despite its upsides, it made him uncomfortable. For one, the man thought he was a  _ child _ , and two, the aforementioned homophobia worries. 

Oh but they were such  _ nice  _ thoughts. ‘ _ Like little jewels _ .’ If nothing else they were enough to get him in the right headspace, warming his belly and curling his toes.

With methodical precision he undid his pants and underwear, pushing them down to mid thigh beneath the blankets. He wasn’t dumb enough to use his right hand for this, and his left wouldn’t do him any good, so he turned over on to his belly, pressed the heel of his palm against himself, and rolled his hips. It wasn’t perfect-- not too bad though. It would be better with fingers, and without the muffled  _ crunch crunch crunch _ of someone walking out in the snow. He would have to be quiet, but then again, it wasn’t like the mattress was going to squeak, right?

His mind skated through various men as he rocked his hips, face pillowed in the crook of his arm. Varric seemed promising for all of two seconds (so fucking  _ wide  _ and  _ strong _ ), but Dove dismissed him as straight, as well as Solas, probably Faron, and anyone else he was likely to meet here for an age and a half.

Best to stick to the old standbys-- video game villains. Large, murderous, often disfigured and usually ambiguously queer coded. Corypheus was  _ not  _ on that list, but the Arishok was. His favourites came to mind easily and after a few false starts he found his rhythm, letting out a shuddering breath and quiet moan. 

He loses himself in the rhythm of it quickly. He pushes against his wrist, spreads his knees, pants and moans and begins to wish desperately that someone will join him. The room is still chilly but beneath the blanket it is scorching hot, sweat drips down his back, his thighs. The sturdy bed is entirely silent beneath him, so he lets himself moan against his arm, encouraging both his imaginary lovers and himself. The thought that someone might hear him is both exciting and horrific, so he bites down on his forearm instead, turning his hand, giving himself the meat of his thumb to work against.

Apparently that is just the extra push he needs for all of his brain to liquify and flow right out of his ear, because the next thought to occur to him is ‘ _ fingers would feel even better _ ’ and before he can remember why he was doing it this way in the first place he opens his palm flat beneath himself--

And yelps like a fucking cat as an electric shock pulses throught his entire body, crotch to head. 

It is not a  _ sexy  _ shock, either, no, not a fun tingly thing, or an ‘instant orgasm’. No, this felt like someone had snuck up behind him in the dark and smacked him between the legs with a whip, a whip on fire that just kept on going, right through his whole body until he’d been split in two.

Sitting on the edge of the bed a minute later, pants around his knees and entirely unaroused, he stares at the cursed hand in disbelief and betrayal. “No wonder the Inquisitor is so fucking  _ high strung _ .” he whispered to it, too offended to really care that this was the sort of thing only an insane person would do. “My very own, glow-in-the-dark, magic, evil cockblock!”

The Anchor, nestled securely in his wet and twitching palm, danced with light. It was probably about as close to a self-satisfied snicker as the thing could manage to convey.

He found a pitcher full of water and a basin to pour it into, all on a shelf just high enough to be uncomfortable to use. He cleaned his hand quickly, hissing with discomfort at the chill, before bundling himself back up beneath his blanket. He slept suddenly and easily, and when he woke up again there was early morning light peeking through the window and the fire had entirely gone out.

He explors his little hut on silent feet. It is still somewhat dark without any lights or candles lit, but he finds an unlocked chest with his shoes, shirt and jacket inside. They smell a little strange, but they’ve been cleaned at least. He is surprised to find nasty tears going through the fabric at the back, but whoever cleaned them also put in the effort to sew them back up. His blue work-shirt is stitched tightly with offwhite thread, and his dark green jacket with thick brilliant crimson. It looks awful, but in a fun sort of way, so Dove is absolutely delighted by the change, stripping off his stupid oversized tunic to put both of them on. The brief seconds he spends with exposed skin while he does up the buttons (discovering that one near the middle is missing) is torture, but soon he has the shirt, the jacket, and his newly beloved blanket hugging him tight, with shoes on his feet, ready to face Haven.

Or so he thought.

Its different than he was expecting. Larger, not just in height but also construction. There are at least a dozen huts clustered around his own, though it still has pride of place all the way at the end, pressed close to the towering fort walls. Twibbon has been replaced in the night and a different, younger, dumber looking man jumps to stand at attention, looking down with an uncomfortable amount of awe. He mumbles something out, maybe a greeting, and Dove doesn't return it, wrapping his blanket tighter around himself and scurrying away.

No one but the door guard saw him leave, and with the protection of his blanket over his clothing he is free from stares. People look at him when he passes but there isn’t awe or muffled whispers, no prayers, and he is glad for that. These people are all worn and tired looking, but the thinnest of them is still twice as big round as Dove is so he doesn’t want any of their attention. It was one thing when the giants were  _ Cassandra  _ or people wearing Chantry uniforms, but the regular folk make him uneasy. Who's to say that one wouldn’t see him as a false profit and do away with him when no one was looking?

Not a rational thought. He knew how the story went and the people of Haven would never even consider such a thing. It was just their size that worried him, and he squashed the shaky and distrustful part of him, the child in his chest that believed anyone larger than himself was not to be trusted. He’d thought he’d gotten over that, but apparently he had only gotten taller.

_ Is that what I'm here to learn? _ He thought, utterly disgusted.  _ That I need therapy? Jokes on you, subconscious, I already knew that! _

“Is that him?” Gasped someone up ahead, and Dove ducked his head, picking up speed.

“The Herald of  _ Andraste _ !”

“The Makers  _ Light _ !”   
  
“The Hand of the  _ Maker _ !”

He picked up his pace, jogging past the small but excitable crowd, and up a row of steps that was much higher than he remembered. Rather than only two tents at the top, though, there was a proper encampment, a ring of large leather tents around a campfire. He thought to dash passed it all, run around the corner and into the chantry, but as he passed the tents he saw a figure near the fire, sitting on a low log and warming his hands.

“Varric!” He called out, though he immediately regretted it, thinking people might well be asleep in the tents. No one complained, or groaned though, and Varric turned, surprised only for a few moments before raising a hand in greeting.

“Well, look at you.” He said, his voice still cracking with sleep. He waved Dove over and he was happy to come, sitting down on the other end of the log, shivering as the heat hit him. “You just wake up?”

“Mhm.” Dove leaned in a bit, enough for the fire's warmth to edge towards ‘too hot’, and stayed there. He wanted to release the blanket to warm his hands as well, but didn’t want to give up what little disguising capabilities that it offered. “Cold.”

“I’ll put the word in to get you some kind of coat.” Varric promised, though Dove couldn’t help but notice that he himself wasn’t actually wearing one, just his tunic, rolled up above thick, hairy forearms. His fingernails were surprisingly clean, though the skin itself was stained with ink. “That is, if you survive your interrogation with Cassandra. Now that you’re awake she’ll be looking for you, I expect.”

“She can wait till I’m ready.” 

Varric hummed, leaning back to look at Dove hard, and Dove ducked his head away to avoid being looked at. Not as though there wasn’t plenty else to see. The top half of the Chantry was easily visible above them, more similar to a mansion or castle than a church really, but he knew what it was based on the process of elimination more than anything else. Also, there were Chantry flags at the top, waving in the breeze, as proud as any american flags he might see back home. 

Were they always there? He couldn’t quite remember.

“You know, I’m glad you're still here.” said Varric, and Dove turned to look at him again, his dumb heart giving a stuttery little jump in his chest. 

_ ‘Easy, easy, you're  _ **_so_ ** _ easy.’ _

“Yeah?”

“Sure. I mean, I coulda swore I heard something about you disappearing after you dealt with the Breach, so I’m a little surprised, of course.” Varric snapped a thick stick between his hands, using one piece to poke at the fire. Dove’s heart sank a little as he realized that  _ oh _ , he was being made fun of. “I’m gonna guess that you’re a little surprised too, though. Were you expecting someone to come for you?”

Dove put a finger to his lips, rolling his eyes. “Cassandra called dibs on hearing it first.”

“Any idea what you’re gonna say, or are you still putting your story together?”

“Nah, I’m planning on telling the truth. Easier to keep track of later on.”

“If there  _ is  _ a later on.” Varric tossed the other stick in the fire and turned to look at Dove hard. His hair was out of its ponytail, hanging in his face, and while it softened him up greatly it was not a good look for him at all. Dove was struck with the odd urge to push it back behind his ear. “At least rehearse what you’re gonna say in your head before you go. Cuz the truth? It’s always  _ more  _ incriminating and less  _ believable  _ than you think it is.”

“Is that what you did when she interrogated you?”

The words slipped out, a question he’d always had about Varric’s game, but it didn’t occur to him until he’d said it that it sounded pretty god damned accusatory. If he was mad, though, Varric didn’t let on, just nodding solemnly as he leaned his hands on the log beneath him. 

“You better believe it, kid.”

Varric changes the subject after that, to the state around Haven and things he might've missed while he was asleep. He carefully avoids the subject of Dove’s probable status as a new holy symbol, for which Dove is immensely grateful. Eventually Varric takes note of Dove’s jittering legs and takes him outside the fort to the Worst Bathroom that Dove’s dreams have ever managed to cook up. Stall too small, seat too high, bugs on the floor, the threat of a zombie outside the door? All of his previous nightmare bathrooms pale in comparison to this one. He leaves his blanket outside with Varric, who laughs at his squeamishness but is kind enough not to leave, and when Dove exits he vows to never go in again.

“That’s gonna be pretty hard if you intend to stay here for any significant amount of time.” says Varric, still dutifully holding the quilt while Dove walks to an untouched snowdrift to rub his hands along the ice. His plan, half-hearted and no-brained, is to freeze the germs off his hands. He had touched absolutely nothing in that building, not even the door, but he still feels filthy, and extremely cold water must be at least somewhat effective, right? “Not sure what exactly you think the alternatives are.”

“I am going to hold it until I leave.”

“Good luck with that.”

There was a field of tents that Varric told him mostly housed soldiers, and as they passed them Dove ducks behind Varric, on the off chance that Cullen might be nearby. They make it nearly all the way back to the safe little circle of tents before a scout steps up to them, ringing his hands, and requests that Dove follow him to the Chantry to speak with the Lady Seeker ‘at her request’. It sounds a little less aggressive that Dove might’ve expected it to be, so he agrees, following him away. Varric doesn’t offer to come with him and Dove lets his mind remain empty, refusing to let anxiety take hold and make him look more suspicious than he already is.

The inside of the chantry is dark and surprisingly cold. There are dozens of candles lit, even torches, but the high ceilings and brutal stone architecture seemed to swallow up all light and heat before it could spread. Without pews to pray at, or lecterns for preaching, and only a few small windows on the second story, the recesses of the building look much more like Leadville Sanitarium than any church that Dove has ever walked into.

He is delivered to what will become the War Room. Leliana and the man from the bridge ( _ Frederick-Roderick-Cedric? _ ) are there as well, but rather than yelling he simply stands from his chair when Dove enters, looking at him with uncomfortable intensite. Cassandra asks him politely to leave, and he nods, walking towards the door. As he passes Dove his hand comes out, as though to pet Dove's head, but he steps out of his reach just in time. He doesn’t seem offended, though, dropping his hand and carrying on his way.

When the guards are gone as well, closing the heavy door behind them, Cassandra waves Dove to one of the chairs set up around the table. If he leans all the way back in the chair his legs stick straight out, but if he moves forward they dangle uncomfortably high above the ground. He sits cross-legged to make up the difference, leaning against the hard wooden back and setting just his elbows on its arms. If the position is too casual for an interrogation neither woman corrects him, which he takes as a good sign.

“Are you well, Dove?” Says Cassandra, still in the slow and careful way that he remembers her using on the mountain. She seems better off than she was then, clean and well rested. No armour at all, other than her heavy boots, just a red and white chantry robe over thick black leggings. He gets the impression that this is the equivalent of pyjamas for her, though her sword still sits at her side.

“I’m fine.”

“I am glad to hear that.” She looks to Leliana, who is also dressed entirely like a member of the Chantry, her hood pushed down and hands clasped carefully on the table. Her expression is mild and pleasant, borderline serene, and Dove wonders if he is meant to believe that she is just a normal Chantry Sister. The ‘good cop’ in this situation, who will lend a sympathetic ear. 

She smiles at him and he struggles to maintain eye contact. “It seems that you promised Cassandra a story.” she says, gentle, like she might scare him away. “I would like to hear it as well.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Cullen?”

Cassandra sends Leliana a significant look, but Leliana does not turn her head to meet it. “Just the two of us. More friendly, don’t you think?”

A creeping feeling goes up his spine, and he picks nervously at the edges of the half-forgotten blanket. He does not miss the way the women watch the glow of his palm as he moves, and wonders how Varric could have been stupid enough to suggest he  _ lie  _ to people as perceptive as them. Who did he think Dove was? His sister was the one who could lie until her face turned blue, he had always been more suited to silently nodding along behind her.

“Dove?”

He started, picking at the blanket a little more forcefully. “Not sure where to start.”

Leliana smiles. “Let’s start with us telling you what we know, and you can tell us if we are on the right track. Alright?”

Dove nods, and watches as she reaches into a small box beside her, setting down a small handful of unwrapped candies. She points to them individually. “These are  _ Lokum _ .” she says, pointing to the red ones. “They are a very rare treat, served only to the highest members of society in Val Royeaux. And these..” she points to the singular brown candy. “..are chocolates, native only to Seharon. They were found in your pockets, wrapped in paper noted with a script we do not recognize, though the symbols were similar to those on the inside of your clothes, as well as on this.”

She puts a tiny golden rectangle in amongst the candies, and it takes Dove a moment to recognize it as his nametag.  _ D. King, Security Officer. _ He hadn’t even noticed it missing from his shirt. 

She sits back in her chair and tilts her head slightly as she watches him, and he gets the impression that whatever is sitting there is very damning. He looks at her for a moment, confused, then over to Cassandra. “I wasn’t hiding any of those things.” He says, trying not to sound defensive. “I was eating them while we walked. I gave one to Varric.”

“So she is correct?”

“Not really.” He reaches for the candies but they are too far away. He points instead. “We just call those Dots. Those ones are Tootsie Rolls and they aren’t.. They just look like chocolate, mostly. It all comes from where I’m from.”

“Leadville.” Cassandra says, and he nods. “I have poured over many maps in the last few days, as have others, and no one in Haven has ever heard of such a place.”

“It’s not on the map.”

“Let us take a look together.” Leliana stands, taking her ‘evidence’ in her hand and putting it in her pocket, reaching for a bundle of rolled up cloth.

“No, that’s not what I meant, it’s more like..” Words fly through his head, desperately searching for the right one. Anything but ‘video game’ and ‘dream’ will work, right? “Okay. Um. So you know about.. The Fade?”

The next few minutes are agonizing, for Dove but probably also for Leliana and Cassandra. He tries, desperately, to explain the concept of alternate universes using only things that might be said in Lord of the Rings, and this method relies heavily on sharp hand movements. 

Maybe he is listening to Varric’s advice, just a little bit, but in his defence Leliana is very,  _ very  _ tall.

Cassandra is rubbing her temples in soothing circles, but to her credit she has not told him he’s insane quite yet. “So you are saying that.. There is a world… beyond the Fade.. and the explosion at the Conclave knocked you first into the Fade, and then through to the real world?”

Dove winced, but eventually shrugged. “Sort of?”

“That is insane.” Says Leliana, her voice flat, and Dove has to give it to her. This was harder than he expected. “You claim that you are a spirit? A ridiculous notion, and even if we believed you then it would explain nothing of what has happened!”

Dove held up his hands, trying to plead innocence. “Listen, I’m not a spirit. I’m-- this doesn’t make sense to me either. From my point of view, being here is literally impossible for-- for a variety of reasons!” 

_ ‘I had a rough weekend so now I’m having a funny little dream where I get to run around and play hero, in the world you call home, which isn't real, and which I didn’t even buy for full price.’ _

Leliana looks angry, but not murderous. Cassandra only looks tired. “You knew things before they happened.” She said flatly, and he thinks that she must have been thinking about this for days. “You knew that the mark on your hand could stop the Breach. You knew the bridge would collapse, the valley would be full of demons, and that there were scouts lost in the mountain, even when no such thing was mentioned near you. How do you explain this?”

“Okay.” He takes a breath, then another. Tries to translate things in his head. “Okay. You remember the spirits in the Temple? The ones replaying things that had already happened?”   
  
“Echos of the past.” Cassandra said, and he nods.

“Solas said that Fade spirits understand Thedas by looking at echos of the past.  _ My  _ world understands Thedas by looking at Echos of.. Possibilities.”

He has apparently managed to touch on something they can sink their teeth into, because Leliana and Cassandra both sit upright now. “Possibilities?” Cassandra repeats. “Like the future?”

“Kind of.” He is exhausted from talking and thinking and wants to go back to bed. He pulls the blanket back around, piling it in his lap. “I know that the Divine gave you two the power to form the Inquisition, and that the person with the mark on their hand will probably become it’s figurehead. I’ve… observed… a few different versions of that person's journey. They will work to close the Breach under the Inquisitions banner.”

He lifts his hand so they can all see the way it glows, just as a reminder that things aren’t normal here, not for any of them. If a bubbling cauldron of smoke can look snide, the mark on his hand definitely manages it. He wiggles his fingers, watching the thin fog float through and between them. 

“The trouble is that the person who gets the mark isn't supposed to be  _ me _ .  _ I’m  _ not supposed to  _ be  _ here. So on that particular front, I am as confused as you are.”

The women sit and digest that for a few moments. They ask him a few more questions, which Dove answers as honestly as he can get away with. That Corypheus is a darkspawn, that he isn’t working alone, that the Inquisition is a good idea and that he is absolutely on board to help with, however he can. They order him to keep the information about Other Worlds and Potential Futures to himself, and to, ideally, avoid everyone in Haven as much as possible until they have worked out what to do with him.

He thinks that, miraculously, he has somehow managed to convince him that he’s not lying. Not necessarily that he’s telling the truth, per say, but not actively  _ lying _ . 

_ They can think I’m crazy all they want, so long as they don’t cut my head off. _

“One last question.” Cassandra says. “You said to me many times on the way to the Breach that you were not a child. How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.” He says, relieved when his voice doesn’t break. “As of last week.”

Cassandra lets out a snort, a smile breaking across her face. She slaps a hand over her mouth to hide it, and Leliana’s hand goes up as well, though the only sign of her amusement is the crinkling at the corner of her eyes. 

“Oh really?” Leliana’s voice is tight with humour and Dove wonders wildly how the hell time works here. A flush goes up the back of his neck and heats his ears. “Thank you for your time. We will call you back if we have further questions.”

He leaves, blanket around his shoulders and his pride in tatters. He’s alive and that’s all that matters, of course, but he is a greedy thing that wants to be respected as well. Still, it chafes at him a bit when one of the towering guards outside the Chantry offers to escort him back to his hut, as though he might have forgotten the way. 

“I’ve got it.” He snaps, holding his blanket tight around his shoulders as he storms once more into the cold.

Initially he intends to go back to his little hut, to spend some time alone and decompress, but it occurs to him that Varric might be worried about him, so he detours over to the circle of tents first. When he doesn’t find him there he goes looking for the bar.

The building is larger than he remembered, and a lot more crowded. Not too rowdy though, probably because it's still awfully early in the morning to get drunk, not to mention just how recently the Conclave had happened. Dove slips past the tables, standing on his toes when necessary, until he spots Varric in a gloomy corner, reading a letter by candlelight. No one else sits near him, so Dove easily hops onto the bench across from him.

“Well, lookit you. Still in one piece.” He grins but there is a definite loosening of his shoulders when he looks across the table, and Dove thinks he might have actually been worried. “Did you take my advice?”

“No.”

“How’d they take it?”

“Could’ve been better.“

“Well you're still alive and you’re walking free, so it could have been a lot worse too. No spoilers till later, though, don’t want any eavesdroppers.” He picked up a bowl that was sitting beside him and what looked like the end piece of some rye bread, pushing them both across the table. “Here, eat up. Would hate to have you survive the Fade and Seekers both, only to drop dead from hunger.”

Dove accepts the bowl but ignores the bread. He isn’t picky about bread, really, but based on the clicking sound when it is set on the (dirty) table he can tell that he will not be able to bite through it. He expects to find oatmeal in the bowl, but what he finds instead is a sort of… watery sludge.

He lifts the spoon, filled with broth, and lets it pour back into the bowl. Not sludge, actually, the opposite. Incredibly thin, incredibly opaque, greyish-brown water. It looks remarkably like dishwater, actually, or water that has been used to clean a paintbrush. There are bits of dark meat swimming throughout it like fat brown beetles and not much else. 

He glances up and Varric is watching him expectantly. His eyebrows raise. Dove raises his own as well and looks down again. “What is this?” He asks carefully. “Do you know?”

“Stew.” says Varric, in the same tone of voice. “Nug, if that's what you mean.”   
  
“Ah. Nug.” He stirs the stew again, trying to see if anything has settled at the bottom. There is something vaguely meally there, and watching it rise to the surface only to sink back below does not make him any more excited. “And nug is... A type of rabbit?”

“Nope. Different animal entirely.” Varric leaned forward on his elbows, his heavy necklace tapping the table. “You never had nug before?”

“I have not.” He swirled the spoon through it once more, forced himself not to visibly wince, then pushed the bowl away. “Actually I’m not very hungry. I just wanted to let you know I was okay before I went to go back to sleep.”

“You're gonna eat something first.” He grabbed up the bread, setting it in front of him. “This is bread.”

“I know what bread is.” Dove said, but he sounded slightly unsure, evern to his own ears.

It was very hard, as expected, though the inside was normal. The crust crunched under his fingers and an awful lot of black fell off when he tapped it against the table. Dirt? Ashes? Did they shove the dough directly into the ashes? Did the cook wash their hands, did they have a snotty nose, did they use a handkerchief or the back of their hand? 

He set it back on the table and subtly rubbed his hand against the side of his calf to get the dirt off. ‘ _ I didn’t survive my bout with a fucking superflu just to die of dysentery!’  _

Whether or not dream-germs could hurt him was entirely irrelevant.

Varric looked ready and willing to spend the rest of the morning putting things in front of him and watching him turn green, but Dove managed to make his excuses and leave. On his way back to the hut more people recognized him, and more whispers followed, so when he was back in his dark little room, alone and quiet, it felt significantly more comfortable.

He sleeps for a few hours, curled up in the cold, only leaving when he is summed back to the War Room. He sits with Josephine for nearly an hour, blown away by her unbearable beauty while she tells him slowly and patiently about his new role as Andraste’s Chosen. He can hardly understand her but he sits with rapt attention, barely able to even look at her but trying his best not to be rude.

She teases out little bits of information from him as they talk, but he doesn’t think much of it will do her any good politically. Still, though, he endeavors to be accommodating and answers everything he can. She encourages him to ‘be himself, but quietly’ in public, which he suspects is her gentle way of saying ‘ _ please do not spread wild and heretical lies about alternate universe to the masses’ _ . 

There will be a ceremony in the evening to announce the assembling of the Inquisition, and he will be expected to join, though his role will only be to stand silently and observe a few speaches.

“Unfortunately we do not have any childrens clothing for you to wear, so I have taken the liberty of requesting Mr Tethras lend you his cloak. Fortunately, he was kind enough to agree.”

That didn’t sound pleasant. “Can’t I wear my normal clothes?”

“It would make people more comfortable.” Josephine shook her head with a sad sigh and downward turned lips, though he doubted that she actually cared that much about his feelings on the matter. “This is a rather difficult situation for the Chantry and it is in our best interest to make it go as smoothly as possible.”

_ Conform. You’re already weird, you should at least  _ **_look_ ** _ like you fit in. _ Dove tapped his fingers against the edge of the table, agitated. “Can’t you just tell people I’m a dwarf?”

“Dwarves are not simply short Humans, Ser Dove, they’re proportions are entirely different. The people would recognize the lie in an instant.”

He took a breath, recognizing suddenly that this was probably his last chance to set the record straight. “Listen.” he said, trying to sound as mature and reasonable as possible. “Look at me.  _ Really  _ look. Think about what children look like, and then look at  _ me _ . I am not a Young Human, I am clearly an adult member of my  _ own  _ race, which is just coincidentally around human child and adult dwarven height.”

Josephine stared at him, and there is amused disbelief on her face, but when he doesn't back down she settles her hands in her lap and looks him over. Internally he begs her to take note of his broad shoulders, his boney fingers, and the cut of his jaw, which has been sharp and pointed since he hit his last growth spurt nearly ten years ago. 

A curious expression slides gently across her face, and she tilts her head with a hum. She isn’t  _ convinced _ , but it looks as though she is at least considering it. He sees her eyes flick to his ears, then taking him in again, bottom to top. 

Her question takes him by surprise though. “You do not look exactly like any human child I have met.” she admits. “But what else, exactly, might you be?”

The question strikes him dumb for a moment, because  _ obviously  _ he is human, but in the real world humans are not ten feet tall, and dwarves are completely normal people hardly anyone bats an eye at, and anyways, havent these medeival peasants heard of  _ proportional  _ dwarfism? He doesn’t  _ have  _ to be anything different at all, why would he need to be an entirely different species to be seen as valid?

But that's not how things work here, apparently, so he blinks, shakes his head, and fidgets with the corner of his blanket as a word presents itself to him. “I mean, it's obvious, isn’t it?” Even as he says it, he knows he is going to regret it. “I’m a Halfling.”

“A  _ Halfling _ ?” She parrots, baffled, brows flying up her forehead.

“That’s  _ our  _ word anyways.” It hurts his pride immensely, and if anyone asked him to walk around without shoes he would kick them where it hurts, but he needs a word to distinguish himself and he isn’t going to go with  _ gnome _ . “Personally, I just prefer ‘people’.”

A few hours later, when Varric is helping to roll up the sleeves of his borrowed coat so that they don’t completely cover his hands, and cynching the belt as tight as it will go, he leans in quietly and asks “So what exactly do Halflings eat?”

And Dove knows then, for certain, that this dream is not going to become fun anytime soon. 


	3. Chapter 3

He had been dreaming about work. Or something like work-- He had played dual roles in the dream, both as a patient in Leadville Sanitarium, trying desperately to explain to a doctor (who may or may not have been a talking lion) that the hospital was closed so he should be allowed to go to thanksgiving dinner, and also as the security guard watching the cameras, scoffing at the idea of anyone going to social gatherings when everyone knew that the moon was wet and also watching them.

It was a stressful dream, but not a  _ scary  _ one, so he just nuzzled his face further into his pillow, willing his pounding heart to slow and let him get back to sleep. 

_ ‘Doctor was sorta cute though..’ _ He yawns into his pillow and curls up tighter against the cold.

A sharp knock on the door and he is upright in an instant, startled and confused. The room around him spins ( _ not his room _ ) and he realizes ( _ Thedas _ ) that it must not have been the first time they knocked ( _ Thedas!? _ ). He realizes suddenly that he feels quite sick, and presses his ( _ left! Only left! _ ) hand to his stomach, blinking hard ( _ this is all real! _ ) to bring the room into focus.

He tries to speak, takes a breath of cold air to settle his stomach, then tries again. “ _ What _ ?!” He shouts, and it is angrier sounding than he means for it to be, but if there was anything in his stomach he would probably be vomiting right now. 

The person on the other side of the door shouts something, and he doesn’t understand it, but he catches the very tail end as he realizes that it’s Varric talking. “--a present! Now open up!”

“One second!”

_ It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s impossible.  _ He isn’t panicking. He won't  _ allow  _ himself to panic. There is a part of himself, a second self, the  _ weaker  _ self, who detaches from the rest, pulls back, and  _ he  _ is panicking, screaming, terrified to be here, but the physical self that controls the body is fine. He’s just a little sick, just a little tired. _ He’s okay _ . In and out, he breathes the cold air, waits for his heart to calm down. 

He counts to ten twice but his heart is still pounding. The superstitious idiot inside him, the dumb little caveman that worries about ghosts at work, who is sure there will be a face in his second-story apartment window at night, that has always suspected that he is somehow cursed, that part of his personality is only getting louder and more frantic the longer he is alone with his thoughts. Dove takes one last breath, holding it in his chest to cool his lungs, before letting it out and rolling onto his feet.

In deference to the cold he had slept fully dressed, so he only needed to pass a hand through his hair to settle it before pulling open the door. There Varric stood, completely real and solid. Like every time he saw him, Dove was briefly taken aback to be eye-to-eye with him, but he thought he was slowly getting used to it. After all, it doesn’t feel like Dove is short, only that Varric is tall. He had something under his arm but Dove purposely looked away as he backed up to let him inside.

Varric makes a show of looking around the hut, pretending that it actually belongs to Dove through idle chitchat. Dove is slow to respond but eventually the distraction helps calm him down, especially when Varric lights the fire with a practiced hand. With the flickering light and the promise of warmth, the hut feels a lot more homey, and Dove sits next to the hearth to catch its heat. The stone is uncomfortable beneath his bony ass and he regrets it almost the moment he sits down, but he is committed to his decision for at least a few more minutes.

Varric sits on the bed instead, taking Dove’s makeshift jacket-pillow and shoving it out of the way, replacing it with his own bundle. Dove looks at it only long enough to ascertain it’s colour before darting his eyes away again. He takes in the little room as though he hasn’t seen it before, finding the pattern in the rug under his toes and the ashes on the hearth, before looking back to the bed.

He meets Varric’s assessing eyes and holds their gaze. “You dont like presents?”

King tries not to fidget. “I do.”

“But you haven’t asked after it yet-- haven’t even looked.” 

He twists his fingers together once, then lays them flat on his knees. “Just being polite.”

“Polite must look awfully different up in Leadville-- In  _ Thedas  _ we like to see people  _ appreciate  _ a present.”

After the ceremony last night Varric had taken Dove for a walk around the frozen lake to have their talk in privacy. He had taken it all surprisingly well, though of course Dove hadn’t gone into great detail, considering that Varric was not accusing him of mass murder. ‘From another plain beyond the Fade’ was accepted with ease, but ‘aware of the future’ got a reaction of complete disbelief. “ _ Sounds like you are just making educated guesses _ .” had been his exact response, which honestly Dove couldn’t really argue with. He hardly knew what was happening right now, he couldn’t really expect anyone to believe he knew what was coming down the line.

In a way it was sort of the opposite of how Cassandra had reacted, so maybe he should’ve expected it.

Varric was giving him an expectant look, so Dove put out his hands, palms-up. “Gimme.” 

“That’s more like it.”

The gift was a coat, and when Dove stood up to try it on it fit him well, oversized but not so much as to be uncomfortable.It was green, heavily padded, reached midway down his thigh and had an absurd number of pockets. It was even fur-trimmed! Such a thing in the real world would have probably cost a few hundred dollars at least, even if the fur were fake. Maybe a couple thousand, actually, considering that it was entirely handmade. Dove couldn't stop running his hands over the material, looking at Varric with disbelief and nervous heart. “This is too much.” He said, because he had to point it out, even if he  _ really  _ wanted to keep it.

“Nah, it was practically free.” Said Varric, waving his hand like he didn’t know how much it was worth. “Here’s a Topside Trick for you.  _ Never  _ buy clothing specifically made with people like us in mind. Just find some discarded human clothes and get it taken in. Human clothes are easy to find and anyone will do an alteration for a few copper. Anything else and you’ll get cheated.”

Dove thinks on that for a second, taking the coat off to examine it further. It has a seam going right up the back, presumably where a massive section of it had been removed. In fact, all over it he can spot areas with different stitching, most likely where sections had been cut out.  _ Discarded clothes, easy to find. _ “Did this come off a dead body?”

“Uhhh..” Varric’s eyebrows fly up his forehead and his smile goes tight. “I... take it that's a problem?”

“It isn’t. Just curious.” Probably from someone that died at the conclave. Probably a lot of the denizens of the Haven were looting the corpses, even as they buried or burned them. 

Were they burying or burning them? The ice would be hard to dig through, and there probably wasn’t a way to claim most of these people. Probably best not to think about it. 

Dove puts it back on to show that he doesn’t mind, shivering a bit from even the brief moment outside its warm depths. They talk a little longer before Varric convinces him to try the bar again for breakfast. They are only serving one thing so Varric goes up to retrieve it while leaving Dove alone at the table. 

Word has gotten out that he is awake so people notice him, even with nearly normal looking clothes. It must be either his size or his face-- or the two of them together-- that clues them in, because he can feel the eyes of the occupants on his back the entire time he sits. His companion is only gone a minute but it lasts an eternity. 

_ What are you so afraid of? _

_ ‘They’ll talk to me. Have questions I can’t answer. Find me wanting. Find me monstrous. Hurt me, laugh at me, run me out of town.’ _

His hunger pains had already been teetering on the edge of nauseating, and by the time Varric returns with a bowl of mealy mush Dove’s stomach has twisted up entirely and is slowly working its way up his throat. The moment the wooden bowl is set down in front of him he picks it up, using only the tips of his fingers, and sets it as far away from him as his arms can reach, so that the smell won't reach him. “No, I’m too sick to eat, I’m going to get some air.”

Varric grabs his wrist, and his hand covers half of his forearm. His expression is firm. “Dove, you can’t live off eating handfuls of snow!”

Dove opened his hand flat and twisted his arm foreward and out, breaking Varric’s hold and getting his feet back on the floor. Varric looks somewhat surprised and Dove holds up both his hands in a peacekeeping gesture. “Sorry.” He says, and his ears are ringing a little with the surety that everyone is surely staring and judging him. “I’ll be back later.”

He gets outside without being stopped. Briefly he considers going back to his little hut, where the fire is probably still lit, but he doesn’t want to be cooped up inside again, not yet at least. He will probably miss it when they get on the road, but for now he doesn’t want to lay uselessly in bed. A walk around will help his stomach unclench, and maybe once he feels better he will be able to stomach what this borderline refugee camp defines as food.

Why is he so fucking hungry? He’s been hungry in dreams before, he’s almost certain, and he’d felt pain in dreams too, but it wasn’t like this.

_ Because it isn't a dream. _

_ ‘Not productive or helpful’ _ . Dove shook the thoughts off and climbed a curved set of steps, just to see what was at the top. There was a stone fence at the top of the hill, a handful of cabins, a large pile of barrels. It looked vaguely familiar, and after he spent a moment looking out across the square from his new vantage point, he realized this was probably the area that the potion master lived. Well, him and Dorian and Solas, probably a few others. Everyone in Haven appeared to share their cabins or tents, other than Dove and possibly Varric. 

Though actually the smell so near the potion hut was pretty strong, a pungent and body-odor sort of scent. Not really in a bad way, just very wild. He wrinkled his nose anyways, because it was unfamiliar, and turned back towards the hut, wondering if Solas had his hut to himself after all. Surely there weren't many people that would purposely surround themselves with that scent. Hell, Dorian had probably been put here as a punishment.  _ Oh sorry, hope you don’t mind the smell but there is only one cabin left you see, and no one wants to room with magister. _

“Are you looking for someone?” He turns and flinches when he realizes that Solas has been sitting, leaning against the stone wall, watching him, the entire time. He’s not even entirely sure how it happened, considering Solas’ clothes are so large and dark against the white of the ground. The man seems plenty comfortable on the ground, what with his massive fur and leather cloak, with his lovely brown hands folded in his lap.

He supposed it makes sense that Solas wouldn't simply spend all his time standing next to the door of his cabin, waiting to be interacted with, but something about him sitting in almost exactly the same place is even more odd. 

It's been a bit too long since Solas asked his question, but he doesn’t seem to be impatient about it. Dove fakes an expression of casual innocence, shrugging his shoulders. “No, just looking around. Avoiding people.”

“Avoiding people, or looking for better company?” Solas says it lightly, like a question, but Dove is fairly certain that Solas is trying to plant the idea in his head. Not a surprise really-- since Dove hadn’t sought him out since waking it was pretty in-character for him to want answers, especially since rumours about him were circling wildly.

“Company, I guess.” he says with another shrug. “Are you offering?”

“I am. I admit I have wanted to talk to you for some time.” He waved his hand at the ground to the right of him, where Dove would be protected on all sides from the wind and prying eyes, and Dove took him up on it, slumping against the wall. 

They sat in silence for a while, the two of them. Dove had always liked Solas in the games-- he seemed like a good guy on his first playthrough and he was pretty sympathetic to his machinations, more or less. Since he had played Inquisition before Origins or 2, Solas’ views on spirits, demons and the fade had more or less been Dove’s opinions as well. He made for a pretty good crash course on Thedas’ lore, as well as an interesting person to talk to. From a gameplay standpoint it was nice that it took so long for him to run out of stories to tell, and opinions to give.

Somehow, though, while sitting next to him in the flesh, Dove couldn’t think of a single question to ask. It was the quickest way into the man’s good graces, but the Inquisitors blunt intrusion into peoples personal opinions and business (while a perfectly valid game mechanic) didn’t translate well into reality. ‘ _ Tell me what you think about the Fade _ ’ felt very unnatural in person.

The wind blew through their little space, carrying Solas’ scent to Dove. He smelled strongly of The Road. Not entirely a good or bad thing, just real. Maybe, just a bit, like he’d spent the last few centuries gathering moss. 

He was probably imagining that, though. 

A question occurred to Dove, and he bit back his amusement at the idea. “So. Solas.” Dove said, and the elf turned his head just slightly to watch him from the corner of his eye. “I suspect you have questions?”

Solas didn’t laugh, didn’t get angry, didn’t physically attack him for his cheek. No airhorns sounded, a crowd of people didn’t jump up to laugh in Solas’ face, and he didn’t suddenly wake up home in bed. If he needed any proof that he wasn’t having a normal dream, that was it.

Something was terribly wrong here, and now he knew it for sure. But what could he do with that information?

Solas was talking, at some length, and Dove blinked hard to tune himself back into it. “--it is said, but then, I would prefer to hear what you had to say about it yourself.”

“Um.” He hated himself, more than a little, just then. “It’s.. hard to say.”

“How so?”   
  


They played an odd little guessing game for a minute or so, in which Solas teased and pressed and raised his eyebrows without ever fully admitting that he knew what was happening. That had to be Solas’ game, as least, because otherwise he must have thought Dove was stone fucking dense. Still though, Dove didn’t want to give in and admit he wasn't listening, so he tried another tactic. “How about you just ask direct and simple questions and I will give you direct and simple answers?”

“Like a game?”

“...Like questions and answers.”

“Not a conversation after all?”

There was an odd sort of amused, cat-like look in Solas’ eye and Dove reminded himself again that he  _ liked  _ Solas. “I’m tired. I haven’t eaten and I am willing to answer your questions, I just don’t have the energy to do all the conversational labour here, okay?”

The expression falls off his face, replaced with a more sincere furrowing of his brows. “You haven’t eaten since when?” Dove didn't answer, looking at his hands. “You don’t mean since you woke up, do you? You can’t believe that eating the food of this world will trap you here.”

Dove couldn’t help the amused snort that exploded out of him. Solas didn’t seem to take offense, but he still tried to control his tone to not be too judgemental. “I didn’t think that Fereldan had Fae Folk.”

“I speak of the superstition that exists in Circles, in which young mages are told that to eat food in a dream is to invite spirits into your body.” He looks at Dove, for a few long, curious moments, before reaching into one of his pockets, extracting a rock and holding it out. “Here. It is a simple offering, but I promise that this will have no adverse effects. If indeed you are able to leave, this will not hinder it.”

Dumbfounded but trying not to look it, Dove held out his hands and accepted the rock. It was strangely hot and he passed it back and forth between his hands every few seconds while he stared at it, uncomprehending. “Thank you.” He said, to be polite, but had no idea what the hell this was. It looked very much like a normal rock, a little heavy, brownish-blackish with greyish dirt along one side, likely where it had touched the ground. Was it enchanted? A magic rock that made you not be hungry?

Solas was staring. “Do they not have these in Leadville?”

“I don’t think so.” 

“Here, let me show you.” Solas reached to pluck it from his hand. He didn’t seem to mind the heat of it, grasping it with both hands and without a moment of strain, splitting it neatly in half. It was utterly silent and seemed to cause him no trouble at all. “Here.”

Solas put both halves back in Doves hands and Dove had a brief moment of worry until he looked inside. “Oh.” He said, immediately hating himself with a brilliant ferver he hadn’t felt since highschool. “Thank you.”

He bit into one half of the potato and vowed to never let on to Solas how fucking stupid he was. In his defense it wasn't a very  _ good  _ baked potato. The outside was burnt and the middle was a little bit raw, but the moment he started to chew it his insides untwisted and he found his appetite, wolfing it down. Any concern for the dirt and germs fled because, after all, the fire this had probably been shoved into must have burned most of the bacteria off, right? 

He wasn’t going to think about the state of Solas’ pockets. That was simply beyond him right now.

Another point in his favour was the fact that the potato had been very large. Dove was hardly able to finish half of it before he was full. He tried to offer the other half to Solas, considering that this most likely had been meant to be his lunch (and what a weird thought that was) but Solas waved him off, telling him to keep it for later.

“Varric had mentioned to me that he was at a loss for what to feed you.” Solas said, looking a little too high and mighty for a man that had pulled a burnt potato out of his pocket two minutes ago. “Apparently you are not so difficult to understand as the rumours say.”

“What do the rumours say?”

“Many things. You are a child, a man, a spirit, a halfling, or even the son of Andraste herself. Something tells me none of those answers quite fit.”

Dove considered for a few moments, feeling loose and sleepy now that he had finally eaten. “I explained it to Cassandra, Josephine and Leliana. They were pretty doubtful, honestly.”

“I would like to believe I have an open mind. I have walked the world and witnessed the memory of many fascinating things. Sometimes the truth is more amazing, more terrible, and less believable than the stories that remain.”

He grins a bit. “Varric said almost the exact same thing.”

“Did he?” Dove nodded and Solas smiled. “Then we are of a similar mind. He has already told me what he believes is the truth of your story. I am eager to judge it for myself.”

And so Dove tells him the truth. Still the watered down fantasy version, of course; video games and steam sales will probably just upset and confuse him. He describes, instead, Leadville as what it is-- a small and secluded place, with isolated people currently ravaged by plague. That as a distraction they turn to stories, and that only some of those stories come from Thedas. “It’s like looking through a window.” He says, holding up his hands in the rough aspect ratio of his laptop screen. “I can see a few different stories from Thedas through it. The Hero, the Champion and The Inquis-- The  _ Inquisition _ .” He winces a bit at his near slip-up, his talking hands twitching in front of him. 

Solas doesn’t seem bothered by the stuttering. “Only those three tales?”

“More or less.” Solas seemed to accept that it was complicated and would only slow down his explanation. “The only things I know about Thedas are what  _ they  _ saw and did while I was watching. Honestly, I only know what they  _ might  _ have seen or done. It might not even align with-- with everything actually happening. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Solas mulled over what he’d heard for a few moments, and the quiet between them was comfortable. With his new coat and the hot potato-half in his pocket Dove was almost warm, and the sounds of Haven were distant. It occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t have said all this, openly, outside, where anyone might hear, but he told himself that if anyone had been nearby enough to hear that Solas probably would have noticed and said something.

“I believe I understand.” Said Solas, and though Dove waited, he did not elaborate. Well, that was fine. As long as he is confident. “So what is it that I heard about Halflings?”

It startles him into laughter, and Dove knows that he’s been caught out. He covers his mouth with his hand, to hide his grin, even as he feels his neck grow hot with embarrassment. “Okay don’t tell anyone this part.” He said, putting his voice just a touch lower and leaning in a little. “Halfings are from a different window-world. A species of people smaller than Dwarves. I needed  _ some  _ kind of explanation for why I’m so small.”

Solas seemed amused by the idea, a certain light in his eye at the idea of being privy to a secret. He leaned in just a bit as well, humouring Dove with the joke that this, obviously, was the most important secret here. “So in Leadville you are not so small?”

“In Leadville I am actually  _ very  _ tall.” He tried to keep the pride out of his voice, because it didn’t actually matter, but it was a losing battle. “Things like that are important there, so don’t forget it.”

Solas chuckled and held up a hand. “I swear to remember it, and I swear to tell no one your secret.”

In that moment, Dove wanted very much to say ‘I’ll keep your secret too’. He could feel the words as they crawled up his throat, but he clenched his jaw tight, trapping them behind his teeth. He didn’t believe this was real ( _ you know that it is _ ) but that didn’t mean he wanted to see what happened when an ancient not-God felt threatened. _ Poor impulse control. _ He ought to have it tattooed across his fucking forehead. 

But on the right kind of day, in the right kind of mood, Solas was his  _ favourite _ . Even if he looked different, it just felt nice to talk to him, like this.

_ In real life. _

He told Solas that he was sure he was dreaming. That it was impossible for Dove to reach Thedas, even if he wanted to, even with the potential for ‘Andraste's hand guiding him’, as the worshippers around Haven seemed to believe.

Solas let out a quiet sound, looking up at the sky where two moons hung, still visible in the morning light. “Beneath a full moon, in a haunted ruin, during a sacred holiday where spirits and demons play tricks on the living, at midnight, during a Blight? If ever there were the circumstance for unbelievable things to happen, I believe you might well have seen it.”

Maybe he had been a little too honest with Solas after all.

They talk a little more after that. Dove asks questions wherever feels appropriate and pretends to believe the lies and half-answers Solas brings to the table. As in the game it is easier to ask him questions about the Fade and spirits than it is about himself. He tells stories readily, and Dove falls into the soothing rhythm of his voice. If he realizes that Dove has probably heard it all before he doesn’t censor himself. The enjoyment he takes in monologuing is clear. 

_ Just like any supervillain worth his salt. Probably should've noticed in my first playthrough. _

Their conversation peters out as the  _ crunch crunch crunch _ of boots on the steps herald a visitor. It turns out to be Scout Twibbon, who is to summon him to the War Room. 

Another meeting with Leliana and Cassandra. They speak to him, and though the content is familiar the conversation itself has an entirely different tone.

In a few hours they will leave for the Hinterlands, and Dove doesn't have a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your incredibly warm and positive feedback!!


	4. Chapter 4

There are two things to do before they can leave for the Hinterlands. 

The first is to be introduced to Cullen. A part of Dove had been hoping to avoid it indefinitely, if possible, but he has to admit that it wasn’t a realistic idea. He’s not a mage so it’s not as though the man will be attempting to-- what exactly? Why is he so nervous? Cullen is more or less over his hatred and distrust of mages by Inquisition, but then, Dove doesn’t exactly fit into this world and the idea of accidentally triggering him into a panicked spiral doesn’t feel entirely off the table.

So sure, Dove isn't a mage, but he  _ is  _ a vaguely defined ‘other’ that Cullen might not like. He could be accused of being a demon, or even just be hated for being a heretic.

Whatever he expects to happen, it isn’t for Cullen to just introduce himself like a normal person. They don’t even shake hands. Cullen stays near the door, nods his head, explains his job, and then lets Leliana and Cassandra continue talking. Dove watches him from the corner of his eye, and he can see that Cullen does the same, but the only thing he’s reading off him is curiosity.

Maybe Cassandra and Leliana were keeping the details of how Dove came to be here secret. He couldn’t really blame them. ’ _ Be yourself, but quietly _ ’. It would make sense if they were keeping to the same plan.

He is a little pleased with himself for not immediately swooning upon him, though. He’s definitely handsome-- possibly even Hollywood Handsome-- but in-game Cullen wasn’t his type, and in person he remains that way. Gorgeous, but in a distant, unattainable, unnatural Captain America kind of way. The only real flaw keeping him from being mistaken for a painting is his patchy beard and the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

All in all, when he’s released outside to Varric’s care, he’s glad to have the meeting finally over with.

The second thing they needed to do before leaving was much less nerve wracking. Varric brought Dove down to Harrit, the blacksmith, who wanted to take his measurements. “I’d rather have had you in armour before you left, but better late than never.” he says. His mouth is hidden by a massive red mustache and Dove tries not to laugh in his face. The man chatters away, mostly to Varric, as he wraps a string around various parts of Doves body. Apparently he’s a Redcliffe native. He left to get away from all the rebel mages and had arrived at Haven just in time to watch the conclave explode.

“You’ll like the Hinterlands.” He assures Dove, apparently taking his silence for nerves. “Already told the Seeker about it, but don’t forget to talk to the horsemaster about getting you suited. With his horses you lot will be back here in no time.”

They leave the blacksmiths just in time to leave Haven. He is surprised by that for a moment, until he sees where the soldiers have loaded up a small wagon with minimal supplies. He isn’t entirely sure what he had been expecting, but a simple horse and a handful of crates and pile of bedding couldn’t have taken long to put together.

The horse herself is a slightly older looking grey nag. He hadn’t thought the Inquisition had any horses at all, but then she’s not exactly a charger, built for ferrying troops into battle and looking majestic while clomping around noblemen’s castles. Dove asks the nervous soldier tending her if she has a name, but the man only stammers something out about her having been found wandering around alone.

“The horse was likely owned by someone lost at the Conclave.” Says Cassandra as she inspects the hitching. “She is healthy enough to pull a wagon. If she successfully gets us back to Haven, then you may name her, if you wish.”

Dove nods, giving the giant beast a pat on her soft nose. “We probably won’t need her to make the trip back if we get in Horsemaster Dennet’s good graces.” 

Cassandra stops and looks back at him, a stunned, mystified expression on her face. “I never mentioned…” she says then stops herself, shaking her head slowly. “It doesn’t matter. It is as you say.”

She steps away to talk to the scouts, and Varric, who had seen the entire exchange, turned to Dove and rolled his eyes. “Because I’m sure no one could’ve mentioned the horsemaster at any point before now.” he says with a frankly unnecessary amount of sarcasm. 

Dove tries not to look too guilty.

The four of them set out together sometime before noon. He has never had to read time precisely by the sun before, of course, so he might be wrong. But from his seat in the sparsely packed wagon, with nothing much to look at but blue skies and small mountains, Dove supposes it might be a skill worth picking up. 

Solas and Cassandra seem to have no trouble keeping pace with the horse, Cassandra leading it by a leash like an unusually large dog, and Solas wandering a little ways behind. Varric joins Dove in the wagon and he must resist the urge to ask whether this is short-people privilege. He doesn’t actually say it out loud though, because he has no idea how far away the Hinterlands are and has no desire to walk.

It’s a miserable journey though, even while riding. Dove is bored in the first ten minutes, maybe even sooner if one doesn’t count finding their seat too hard as entertainment. After an hour he and Varric are lying side by side, staring at the sky and making small talk, and soon after that Varric is entirely asleep. Buzzing with energy so intensely that the nerves in his hands and feet begin to jump, Dove eventually hops out of the wagon to try and walk beside Solas. The elf doesn’t say a word, but Dove unfortunately finds that the slow pace was set to much longer legs than his own. He has to speedwalk to keep up with them, and he knows from experience that sweating in freezing temperatures is bad for you. It isn’t long before he gives up on the idea and scrambles back up, hanging off the back of the cart with his chin pillowed on his arms.

Apparently sympathetic to Doves misery, Solas decided to take pity on him and started talking. “Would you like to hear the tale of the Three Empresses?”

The story was about a child empress who’s life was foretold to be in terrible danger. From nearby villages her attendants plucked two perfect lookalikes, to keep her safe from assassins. The trouble was that even the attendants could not tell them apart after long, and it did not stop the assassination attempts. The first went by knife, and the other a few years later by poison, until only one was left to ascend the throne. She reigned for nearly a century and filled the castle with children and grandchildren, more than any of her family line before her, and no one could ever prove whether she was the rightful empress or not.

Cassandra scoffed at the story as it reached its conclusion. “It is the Maker who has decided which bloodline is fit to sit the throne.” she said, with a level of vehemence that made the hairs on Dove’s neck stand on end. “And so it would be His hand that guided the assassinations away from the true empress.”

“Would your Maker not have stayed their hand before they hurt the girl at all, then? What be the need of doppelgangers if she has Divine Protection?”

She turned to throw a scowl Solas’ way, but when she met Dove’s gaze her expression softened. “I do not presume to know the Makers will.” she said, and Dove locked his expression into place as he realized she was going to attempt to  _ reach out _ to him. “But he always sends us what we need, even if it is not what we expect.”

Varric’s hand shot up between them, waggling a finger. “And what if in this case what they needed was, say, an Empress that wasn’t entirely infertile from intermarrying that Blessed Bloodline?”

“That is not what I am saying at all!”

“I believe the Lady Seeker means that the Maker made those girls in the empresses image with the express purpose of letting them die.” Solas’s tone was mild but Dove didn’t turn back to watch him, watching instead the way the backs of Cassandra’s neck was turning red.

“This will be a very long journey if the two of you insist on being difficult.”

Unfortunately for Cassandra, the two of them had apparently been just as bored as Dove was. They spent the rest of the day telling stories and finding little ways to needle at her. Solas was usually more subtle than Varric, but then the dwarf clearly had no allusions of subtlety. Apparently his long interrogation and semi-imprisonment had gotten on his nerves, and now that they were alone, on semi-equal footing, and with nothing but long stretches of snowy road on either side of them, he was looking to exact some payback. 

His tales were largely aimed at Dove but it was clear he was playing to the back row. He told stories about runaway mages, about stupid templars, about how easily Ander’s might have been caught if anyone had been doing their jobs. He talked about crooked businessmen and wild ex chantry sisters, along with stories about Hawke that were almost certainly lies. All of it was pointed but most of it was still funny and lighthearted so no one, even Cassandra, could really find the will to ask him to stop. Whenever the stories turned risque, though, she would turn and snap, order him to hold his tongue and after the third or fourth time threatened to send him back to Haven on his own two feet.

Dove, mostly glad to have some form of entertainment, didn’t step in at all. He just sat in the most comfortable corner of the wagon he could find, watching the trio argue with one another like they were tennis balls being batted around by Venus and Serena.

They stop to eat while the sun is still out. Varric tries to get Dove to eat from the crate of hard cheese and jerkies but he waves him off, pulling the potato-half from his pocket and munching on that instead. Varric says that he’s glad Dove is eating, but the expression on his face implies that even native Thedosians think pocket-potatos are weird. 

It occurs to Dove, as he brushes a bit of lint off of his meal, and as he sees Solas’ happily take from the box, that he doesn’t exactly know how clean the coat itself is, what might have been in these pockets before it was given to him. It’s too late now though, so he dutifully chews, staring up at the Breach and trying to clear his mind.

The second half of the day is quieter, and much more boring. Cassandra takes over conversation, talking at incredible length about the Maker, Andraste and the Chantry. She says it is because Dove needs to have at least a passing familiarity with the beliefs and histories of the people that have begun to worship him, but privately he thinks it’s some sort of punishment for acting up.

In any case it isn’t really an atmosphere where he has room to speak, so he spends the rest of the afternoon in a miserable, half-comatose daze, letting her words go in one ear and out the other.

They make camp while there is still plenty of light to see by. His legs and ass are numb and his back aches, but he tries to help. It’s a complicated song and dance number to get all the tents unpacked and set up, one that the rest of the group has apparently been practicing in secret. After helping get them off the wagon Dove is left at the outskirts of the group, watching them near effortlessly drive stakes through the eyeholes on leather tarps and then prop the whole things up on premade poles. In five minutes they are recognizably tents, and in another five they are taut and completely finished. Varric complained about them being cheap and Cassandra too seemed displeased about their quality, but Solas never said a word.

It felt a little bit like culture shock. Simple, easy to set up tents made of strong leather and good wood? Dove couldn’t remember the last time he’d owned anything made out of leather or wood, let alone a luxury like a camping tent. Hell, he and Michael didn’t even have a table, they ate their food on a thrifted couch. A  _ completely leather tent! _ Dove had more or less imagined that the Inquisitor slept on the ground so this is honestly a massive step up.

There were only three of them, though. A question burned in his chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask it just yet.

Dove and Varric gather firewood and Solas sets it on fire with barely a flick of his wrist. They all sit in a circle around it, warming up, and things are quiet and peaceful up until Dove’s stomach growls.

“Grab some food out of the wagon.” Varric says it with such speed that it actually startles him. He is glaring across the fire and Dove just hunches over further like he can hide behind the flames. “There isn’t any point in avoiding it, Dove. It’ll be the same food in the morning.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you hearing me? It’ll be the _ same food. _ I don’t know what you’re holding out for here, but you’re not going to find it.”

“ **Varric** .” Cassandra’s tone would’ve shut up any man in her employ, but Varric only seemed to be more irritated.

“He ate today. I fed him this morning.” Solas cut in, trying to calm the argument, but Varric scoffed.

“Great, we can keep him limping along on raw dirt-apples until he drops dead from cold!”

Dove was not enjoying this conversation. Partially because he didn’t appreciate being talked about like a person with very little agency, but also just because he didn’t like being talked about whatsoever. “I don’t want to eat from the crate because I don’t know what half that food is.”

And he did get it, for better or worse. Varric’s eyes were narrow as he stared at Dove, probably trying to guess if he was lying. “What do you mean you don’t know what it is? It’s meat and cheese. You don't have meat and cheese in Leadville?”

“It’s not even remotely the same. I don’t recognize any of it.” He shakes his head, shivering as a sudden cold breeze hits his back. “More importantly, it all looks  _ dirty _ . It’s probably old and has had rats crawling over it. If you make me eat it I guarantee that I’ll be sick.”

“I’m not going to  _ make  _ you.” Varric’s tone of voice changes, switching to a more soothing tone. “I just want to  _ convince  _ you to make better choices.”

“I am not nearly hungry enough to make that choice yet.”

Varric makes an irritated sound, getting to his feet. He walks towards Dove, and despite that absolutely nothing he knew about Varric’s character had ever implied he was the type to do it, Dove still went cold, his body locking up, bracing. Several seconds go by at half speed as he sits and waits for Varric to hit him.

He didn’t though, because of course he didn’t. He kept on walking right past Dove, past the tents, past the wagon, and into the woods.

The three of them sat silent around the fire as they listened to him crunch his way through the snow. Dove tried not to believe that he had completely ruined their burgeoning friendship over something as stupid as this, but that didn’t stop him from thinking it.

Cassandra and Solas didn’t seem too bothered. They looked utterly at ease in the warmth of the fire, Cassandra herself drowsy and half asleep.

“You don't-” Dove’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat to try again. “You don’t think that he’s… gone for good?”

Cassandra scoffed. “We should be so lucky.” 

Solas laughed quietly and sent Dove a reassuring smile. “I doubt that Master Tethras has decided, on a whim, to walk all the way back to Kirkwall in the dark.”

It wasn’t long at all until Varric returned, and Dove turned to greet him, intending to apologize for being difficult, but what instead came out of his mouth was- “Is that a rabbit?!”

The dwarf shook his head, holding up the dead creature by a hairless pink leg. There wasn’t much blood, considering that it had been pierced entirely through by an arrow through its back, but the way its head bobbed was unsettling. “This is a nug.” He said, and he was back to being friendly and amused. He stepped closer to Dove, to let him look it over in the firelight, but it was all that he could do to not pull away. “You can hardly go ten steps in Ferelden without seeing one. Nearly every meal is going to be Nug, and half of all leather is nug too. So you really ought to get used to it sooner rather than later.”

Dove agreed quickly, to keep the piece, and determinedly looked away when Varric set himself to cleaning it. The noises were unpleasant but quick, and by the time Dove looked up there was a processed carcass being placed over the fire to cook. Everyone seemed very pleased by the prospect of fresh fire-roasted nug so Dove kept his own opinions on the matter to himself. Also for the sake of the piece he chose not to ask about the cleanliness of the stick that went through it, the arrow, or the knife that cleaned it. He accepted the leg they gave him when it was offered and pretended to like it.

It wasn’t absolutely unpalatable, of course, but it tastes kind of like earthy-chicken. Dove was resigned to the idea that this was probably all he would be eating for the next forever. A sad state of affairs, but he tried to reassure himself that it was probably better for him than his own largely carb-based diet back home.

He managed about half of the leg before tossing it in the woods behind them. It was the same that the others had done to their share, at least. The creatures carcass was picked down to its bones and left to fall into the fire.

Dove wondered if nugs went to the Makers side. He decided not to ask, mostly so that Cassandra wouldn’t take it as an invitation to prosthelytize more.

When the fire had begun to shrink and the moons were crawling up the sky, Dove finally asked the question he’d been thinking about ever since the tents had been put up. “So where do I sleep?”

Varric spent a minute teasing him for it (“What, did you forget your tent? I didn’t even notice, sorry guess you’ll have to sleep under the wagon!”) but eventually Cassandra admitted that she was uncomfortable with the idea of Dove sleeping alone. “I fear that you may be taken in the night by someone who disagrees with the Inquisitions belief that you are the Herald of Andraste.”

Dove could guess that ‘taken’ wasn’t the real word she wanted to use there, but nodded anyways. Probably not a worry in the middle of snowy nowhere, but once they got into the Hinterlands he could see it coming up.  _ Bandits and Templars and Mages, oh my _ .

Varric, in a much better mood now that he had fed Dove, gave him a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “You’ll hardly notice me.” 

No one else offered to share so apparently that was the plan all along.

It wasn’t too bad, honestly. The tent was pretty big, with more than enough room for the two of them to lay on either sides of the wooden pole sticking up the middle. Whoever packed the wagon had put a pillow in for each of them, as well as a giant-sized blanket. Dove wrapped himself up and curled into a ball atop the dry leather floor, and though he didn't remove any clothes but his shoes, he was still half frozen in their little cave.

The only sound in the tent was Varric’s breathing and Doves chattering teeth. The hard ground wouldn't warm up beneath him, and neither would his blanket. Every time he shifted to try to find a new, less cold position the glow from his hand would briefly blind him. He was entirely awake and entirely miserable.

He let out a sigh. Would this be his entire night? He would just end up sleeping in the wagon tomorrow, most likely, which wouldn't exactly help him get on the same schedule as everyone else.

He was pretty deep into his pity party, which was at least succeeding in helping him forget about the cold, when Varric spoke into the dark. “Still awake?”

“Mhm.”

“Not used to roughing it, huh?”

“Are you?”

Varric chuckles quietly, and there is a shifting noise as he turns over. Dove can just barely make out the shape of him in the dark. “Only recently. Before this whole business I had a comfortable little place. Nothing special, but it was warm and familiar.”

“The Hanged Man?”

Varric is quiet for a while, long enough for Dove to grow uncomfortable, but eventually takes a breath. “Yeah.” he says. “It was all jail cells and camping after the Rebellion. I didn’t think what he did would effect my life much, but now it’s looking like things’ll never go back to how they were, for me. Goes to show that you can’t just opt out of caring about other people’s problems.”

Dove felt suddenly absolutely desperate to ask Varric questions, but he clenched his teeth and waited, hoping the dwarf would elaborate. He had generally seemed to disapprove of Anders through most of his game, but not enough to actually ‘do anything about’. It was ultimately Hawkes decision whether or not to kill Anders for what he’d done, to shun him or continue supporting him, but what did Varric have to say about it?

Unfortunately, three-ish days of friendship was apparently not enough to unlock that heavy a conversation. Varric let out a big, loud yawn, before tapping the ground beside him. “Here. You’re too scrawny for this kind of cold, the ground will just leach all your heat. Lay with me and we can warm each other up.”

The idea hadn’t previously occurred to him as an option, but he suddenly wanted it more than anything. He got as far as sitting up, his arms stiff and weak from cold. The green light from his hand lit the tent as his blanket moved and he was reminded that Varric was an entirely real human (ish) man, much wider and stronger than he was. A heterosexual man that probably wouldn’t take kindly to being tricked. 

A sudden nervous shyness overtook him as he looked at the side of his strong, square jaw, and to the sleepy eyes looking right back at him. “I told you before that I’m an adult, didn’t I?” He said, carefully. “I don’t want you to offer thinking I’m a harmless little kid and then… get weird later on.”

Varric snorts his way into a guffaw, a rusty laugh building in his chest, larger and larger, almost more of a cough than a proper laugh. He sounds a little bit like a sputtering old car engine. “What?” He finally says, and he is trying to keep his voice down, but Dove can’t help but hope that Solas and Cassandra are all the way asleep. “So you think-- your thought process here is that adults can’t cuddle? You think that’s just for kids?”

“Uhm, well..”

“I’ll have you know that in my experience, people get  _ better  _ at cuddling as they get older! Shit, I’d say I’m an  _ expert _ !”

Dove huffed a quiet laugh and gathered up his pillow and blanket, crawling across the tent to Varric's side. He had moved on to talking about ‘paying for cuddles’ and ‘professional opinions’ as Dove laid down next to him, a hair's breadth from touching. Already he could feel the radiant heat of him but Varric stopped, mid-rant, to laugh at Dove again. “What kind of cuddle is that? Is there an invisible barrier between us I’m not aware of?”

“Our personal bubbles?”

“No bubbles in the Frostbacks.”

In one swift movement Varric scoops an arm under Doves shoulders, pulls him forward, and locks him against his side in optimum cuddling position. His head is on Varrics shoulder and he is burning hot against Dove’s cold skin, even through his clothes. He went rigid in the dwarfs hold, but after a few seconds where it was clear that this was what Varric had been expecting, what he was really offering, Dove let his muscles unclench, slowly, one by one.

Eventually he was nearly boneless against him, soaking up his heat like a sponge and dizzy from the sheer, unexpected comfort.

“Nice right?” Varric asked, his voice already low with sleep again.

Was it  _ nice _ ? Dove hadn’t cuddled with anyone other than Michael in nearly ten years, and neither of them ever really enjoyed it when it happened. They were both tall, scrawny, pointy people, and had often laughed at the idea of cuddling. Why would they want to do it? It was just as intimate to bump knees while sharing the couch, or to secretly brush knuckles at the grocery store. They didn’t like being touched more than that-- just the occasional hand on Dove’s bare shoulder was often so intense as to give him goosebumps. It wasn’t a feeling he understood or liked, not one he craved at all, really, outside of sex.

But was cuddling  _ Varric  _ nice?

It was warm. Varric was muscular, but the shoulder under his head felt soft. Even with all the clothing between them, the large hand sitting on his waist felt strong, firm, like he wouldn’t let Dove roll away in the night. He was huge, and he was soft, and he was real beneath his hand and under his nose, smelling of leather and roasted nug and a masculine sort of musk so heavy that it made Dove a little dizzy. Woodfires and heavy food and sweat. It was the sort of smell people in trashy stories attributed to cowboys or werewolves. It felt almost invasive, dirty, to enjoy the smell of him, but then, Varric had invited him-- Varric had insisted.

So did it feel nice? Dove wouldn’t let himself admit it until he knew Varric was asleep. Wouldn't let himself enjoy the smell of him, the warmth, the soft but firm feel of his body. It was nice. It was  _ better  _ than nice. He was safe, and he was wanted, and if he could help it?

He never wanted to wake up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they will be in the Hinterlands, doing Hinterlands Things in the next chapter. Sorry its a little slow, i just generally feel like the first time things happen they should be mentioned, you know?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that feeling where you just can't get a battle scene to feel good so you sit on it for a month and are incapable of moving on from it or improving it? Anyways, sorry. Also sorry if the Giselle convo is weird, I knew I wanted 1 line and I just let the two of them go until it got there.

When the snow disappears behind them and the world begins to warm up, the trip becomes significantly less miserable. The horse speeds up, the birds sing, and they pass the occasional traveller on the road. Cassandra thinks that they are headed towards Haven and Varric begins a peaceful conversation about supplies and trade routes.

It takes three nights in total to reach the Hinterlands. They only stop a few times but Dove is still blown away that they could be so close. Weren’t they pretty far on the game map? Admittedly they walked at a pace set by giants but it shouldn’t have made that large of a difference. Dove was very much used to the idea of traveling his entire town by foot, but it was a tiny little town, not an entire fantasy world that ought to stretch out to unknowable distances

By the time that a scout steps onto the trail to welcome them to the Hinterlands, Dove already suspected they were there. The greenery is so abundant that it almost hurts his eyes. Colourful flowers dot every hill, mossy stones, thick and healthy trees, lush wild grasses and babbling brooks. The area is mountainous as well, those same strange small mountains with beautifully aesthetic cliffsides hanging over the path. It is springtime in the Hinterlands and Dove has spent hours in the back of the wagon, eyes wide as he basks in the warm sunlight, trying to memorize all its beauty at once.

Cassandra talks to the scout and though it is the first stranger ‘they’ have spoken with since leaving Haven, Dove pays them no mind, hopping out of the wagon to feel the ground beneath his feet. When they start moving again he is happy to stretch his sore joints, speeding along by Solas’ side and sharing a private, pleased smile with him. 

The little scouts camp didn’t look like much of anything when they came upon it. A few tents and a table, crates of supplies and weapons, not far off the beaten path. The wagon and horse had to be left at the bottom of the hill but the man that brought them promises to bring them around to where their own horse and wagon are hidden. As all the tall strangers stare at Dove, wide eyes drinking him in, making him so self conscious so rapidly that he thinks he might accidentally rip his way out of skin suddenly stretched too tight, he wishes that he had stayed behind with the horse. 

But oh! Not  _ all  _ strangers! He spots, near the back of the pack, Scout Twibbon. He is looking at them as well but in a less gluttonous way. He suits the environment while still standing out from it, a viking among soldiers, outfitted like the rest of the scouts but unmistakably larger and wider. When he sees Dove looking back at him he lifts his hand to wave, smiling a crooked smile, almost shy.

Dove raises his hand to wave back, but the light of his palm instantly draws the eyes of everyone in the camp. He flinches from his own hand, shoving it quickly into his pocket, as someone peels away from the group to approach.

“You’re the Hand of Andraste! Or, the Herald, or the Son, whatever they are saying, it’s you!” she says, excited, and Dove realizes that she’s a dwarf, which must mean-- “Scout Harding. We all know what you did at the Breach.”

“Nice to meet you.” He says, and he means it, though in all honesty he doesn’t recognize her at all. Freckles are the only thing he remembers about Harding, but she has them in abundance, so it must be her. She’s the first person he has met in Thedas that is shorter than him, though not by much, and she is thick and curvy beneath her heavy armour. 

She is looking him over too, top to bottom, with undisguised interest, and he struggles not to fidget under her scrutiny. “You know I heard that you might be a Dwarf.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Not that it’s your fault that you aren't. Just rumours. The one thing we have in abundance down here. That and templars.”

She is clearly feeling awkward, and it’s making Dove feel the same way. He looks to Twibbon, who has looked away, then back to Harding, then to his feet. What the hell did the Inquisitor say here? “So. How are things at the crossroads?”

“Good! Well-- no, terrible actually, dire, but we are keeping an eye on it.” She performs a full-face cringe, looking to Cassandra a bit wildly, and the Seeker steps forward to take over with a frustrated sigh. 

The conversation hits the expected beats after that-- the war has spread, the mages and templars have gone wild, Mother Giselle is at the crossroads. Dove isn’t entirely sure what he did wrong there to get entirely booted from the conversation, but it seems more up Cassandra’s alley anyways.

He meets Varric’s eye and leans in, whispering behind his hand. “Harding in Hightown.”

Varric chokes and has to cover his rusty laugh with his hand, his expression delighted, and Dove stands up tall again, holding back his own grin. Maybe he doesn't know how to do the whole Serious Leader thing, but he can manage companion banter at least, which was more or less all he cared about in these games anyways.

“There is fighting at the crossroads.” Cassandra announces as she turns to look back at them. There is a sort of irritated curl of her lips, like they are badly behaving children she has been put in charge of, which wasn’t fair considering they hadn’t done anything wrong. Her gaze locks onto Dove in particular and he knows, suddenly, exactly what she’s going to say. “You will stay here until it is safe.”

“I will  _ not _ .” A big part of him agreed with her, instantly, on principal. But he was the main character, and if he didn’t even  _ watch  _ the first fight of the game he was more or less signing up to be sidelined permanently. “I made it through the first-- through the mountains just fine and they were full of demons. Just give me a thingy and I’ll stay in the back and I’ll be fine. A mace, I mean.”

There were quiet snickers and a suddenly noisy amount of shuffling through the grass and dried leaves. His neck warmed uncomfortably.  _ The thingy. Great job, idiot.  _

For some reason Cassandra bought it, though. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before nodding. “Fine.” she growled through gritted teeth. “You will stay back, with Varric. I would not prefer you be too far away for me to protect, anyways.”

She marches ahead, several scouts breaking off from the pack to join her, and Dove follows a good distance back. Varric slaps him on the shoulder, his grin overflowing with mischievous pleasure. “Nice job there, kid! You’ve got a real silver tongue. Really charmed the pants off ‘em, I bet by the end of the week the troops’ll be eating out of your magic hand.”

From above and behind them, Solas chuckled as well, and the heat at Dove’s neck extended upwards to his cheeks. “I uh… tried. My best.” He said, trying to smile as well but not quite getting there. “This is pretty new for me, I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Oh I don’t doubt it.”

A bit down the hill there was a small gaggle of tall troupes, and they had a box of ‘extra’ weapons they had ‘found’ for him to go through. He spotted a new mace near the top, and quickly claimed it for his own. It was jaggety and weird, the hurty-bits flaring out like a sun, and it had a nice little stabby poker on the end. It was heavier than the one from the mountain had been, a bit larger, but if he used both hands and held it like a baseball bat he figured it would be fine. All the giant, well-trained warriors gathered round him were clearly watching, even if they pretended to talk to one another, and though they seemed amused by his choice none of him told him it was the wrong one, so he figured it would probably do him just fine.

Only a few more minutes of discussion, none of which involved Dove, and their group headed out of the camp and down the hill, followed and led by a scattering of scouts. He recognized the strange, round house set awkwardly on the rocks along the road, and saw the distant top of a half-remembered ruin. There were dead bodies on the ground as the path grew thinner, their faces turned up and fully visible as Dove passed them by. Shouts up ahead, screams, the clanging of weapons. 

Doves hands started to shake. What if the thin pathway was a trap? Should he say something? Wouldn’t warriors already know? What if he caused a panic? Got in the way? Distracted someone?

Everything moved suddenly before he could decide-- one moment he was in the thin path between mountains, getting more anxious by the second, the next thing he knew they were out in the sun and in the middle of battle. Varric's hand was wrapped around his forearm, dragging him out of the way and Cassandra was far ahead, shouting at a group of gigantic, well-armoured knights. She was trying to talk them down from whatever it was they were doing, but her voice cut off with the ringing of shield-on-shield. 

Everyone was fighting. It was easy to tell the templars apart from the scouts because of the armour, but that meant it was also easy to see that the templars were much bigger and were winning. Knives, swords, everything was bouncing off the templars’ armour and half of them had shields as big as dinner tables to protect them further. Bianca was sounding-off but Dove couldn’t tell where he was aiming, couldn’t follow the arrows, and not one of the templars had yet fallen. 

A thunking sound beside them. There was an arrow embedded in the fence just a few feet away, roughly even with their heads. “Varric-?”

“Yeah, I see it.” Varric didn’t sound terribly scared or upset, which made Dove less nervous right up until he realized Varric was probably doing that on purpose. “Come on, we need to get in closer.”

He didn’t drag him this time but Dove stayed close anyways. The new position was close to Solas but still well away from the action, probably out of the archers range. As Bianca let loose another round Dove was able to see her arrow appear between the plates of one of the Templar’s armour. The man shouted, jerked to the side, threw up his shield between them, only for one of the scouts to tackle him from the side, slicing at him with knives. The action was largely blocked from Dove’s view by the shield, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about that.

“Watch out!” Shouted Solas, and Dove turned in time to see Solas dive out of the way of an oncoming train-- no, a charging shield, huge, gleaming and coming right for him-- before Varric shoved him and sent him sprawling. The templar was too heavy to turn quickly so he barrelled right past them. Varric was already on his feet, aiming arrows at point-blank range, but in only a moment the templar had its shield up and its sword drawn, turning his back on Dove and swinging at Varric. 

Dove probably should have run, but he acted on instinct instead, scrambling to his feet and rushing forward to protect Varric. Before he could strike a blue streak of magic ( _ ice? _ ) shot over his shoulder, hitting the Templar’s back and locking him in place. Dove carried through nonetheless, pulling back his mace and swinging it as hard as he could into the unprotected back of the Templar’s knee. 

There was a shattering, crunching sound, and an ugly gurgling shout from the templar as he crumbled, still clutching his sword. Dove reared back, ready to strike again at the head, but Varric beat him to it, plunging a knife into the enemy’s neck. 

The fight didn't go on much longer than that, maybe a minute total, during which time Dove held tight to his mace and kept light on his feet in case he needed to dodge or run. The last enemy fell and a short cry of victory rang out across the team, largely drowning out whatever Varric was saying to him. Even as everyone else relaxed and began to check on one another, Dove remained vigilant, hopping up onto his toes to try to see down the path.

“It's over, kid.” said Varric, in that same calm ‘everythings fine’ sort of voice. Dove was on to him though, so he wasn’t going to fall for it. “Never been in a fight before?”

He wasn’t sure how to say that he was expecting a wave of mages to follow the templars without sounding paranoid, so he forced himself to relax a little, wiping his palms off on his thighs. “Never been in a fight? I was literally in the demon fights like.. When you met me.”

“Monsters are different from people.”

“Yeah, they were way bigger.”

Varric said things after that, something about ‘if you need to talk to someone’ and ‘war is hell’, but Dove wasn’t paying any attention, watching instead as one of the downed scouts took a healing potion from one of their companions and drank it. No big flash of light, no sparkles, just a man getting up off the ground and walking away. What the hell was that about? Was that even magic? Did it set broken bones and heal wounds, or was the guy just re-energized enough to be able to walk to a cot?

Frankly it was yet again disappointing and he was starting to doubt the magical aspects of this world. It had been a bright red potion bottle, that was Health right? His inability to quickly google things he was unsure about was quickly evolving from a minor nuisance to a huge, infuriating inconvenience.

He sat beside Solas on the back of an abandoned, damaged wagon, watching as everyone else scurried around setting things up, dragging away corpses and bringing the refugees out of hiding. Even Varric was helping, or at least talking to people, but Cassandra had ordered the two of them, specifically, to stay noticeable but out of the way, and neither of them had seen fit to complain. A loud thunking noise echoed through the valley as the scouts hammered in an Inquisition signpost, supposedly to signify that Cassandra now owned this little village. In the distance, the red and white uniforms of Chantry sisters drifted in and out of sight. 

“You seem to be in ill spirits.” Said Solas, though when Dove looked at him he was also looking out at the bustling activity. “Is there anything you need?”

“No. Maybe.”  _ Caffeine, a cell phone, google, two more feet of leg _ . “Do you have cigarettes here?”

He regretted it almost as soon as he said it, because  _ obviously not _ but also if they did have them, then he shouldn’t be smoking them. Luckily for him, Solas just shook his head.

“No, not by that name at least. What is it?”

“Nothing. Poison. Nevermind.”

“Oh,  _ poison _ , that is something Thedas has in abundance.” He looked a little excited, but Dove quickly held up his hands to cut him off.

“A different kind. It doesn’t matter. I quit last year anyways, I don’t wanna get tempted back to it.”

“You quit...poison?” Solas was smiling, and his teeth were a little crooked, a little round and cute looking, and Dove had to look away. “Do you mean  _ poisoning _ ?”

Dove spent the next few minutes trying to change the subject until eventually he spotted a vision in white (and red) coming down the path towards them at a careful, slow gate. Her dress was so white that it nearly burned Doves eyes to look at, and he wondered, vaguely, how someone in the medieval ages could manage to keep their Whites really  _ White _ . Was it magic? Bleach? Or maybe Chantry Sisters just endeavored to never get really dirty in the first place. 

She stood before their little half-broken cart, a perfectly beautiful and poised woman with intricately embroidered robes and a hat that must be at least two feet tall. A Giantess with the general shape and sturdiness of an antique wardrobe, lips pursed as she looked at the two of them with curiosity and subtle disapproval. “I believe you are the one known as the Son of Andraste, are you not?” she says, and the voice of Mother Giselle is exactly as he remembers it. Its a little shocking actually, that he remembers what a one-note character like her sounds like at all, but then again, she wasn’t exactly his favourite. 

“Son as in child, or Sun as in light?”

She tilts her head, and it's a small gesture, hardly an inch, but the falcon-like golden hat makes it incredibly obvious as it glints in the sunlight. “You do not know?”

“I do. I was just wondering, since the Chantry has the whole--” he waved his hand a little towards the golden sun on Giselle's chest, then to Solas. “The whole?”

“The religious iconography?” suggests Solas, and Dove nods quickly.

“Yes. The uh-- the Sun Motif.”

Mother Giselle does not seem amused with either of them. “I take it that neither of you are believers of the Chantry?” she said, through her eyes mostly focused on Solas’ staff.

“Not really. Sorry, ma’am, I know the general idea, just not the whole… Sun part.” Dove can’t help but feel like he is ten years old again, giggling with his sister during their first sunday school and upsetting the nuns. Neither then nor now was he purposely trying to be disrespectful, but considering that the Chantry was a  _ Made Up Video Game _ religion, he couldn’t really take her seriously. “Something to do with the Chant of Light, right?”

“In a way. The most holy tenet of the Chantry is the belief that if all nations under the sun raise their voices together in the Chant of Light, that the Maker's Eye will turn back on his Children.” she said it with a holy sort of reverence, like she was quoting something, and Dove nodded, making sure his face stayed agreeable. She was watching his face though, so she could clearly read his discomfort. “You are young.” she said, and her voice was gentle. Her hand came out, a massive thing, older looking than her face, but without a single callous. “Andraste has given you her Light, and you don’t know what to do with it, do you?”

“Um. Cassandra seems to have a plan in mind. And she’s a Seeker, so..” Her hand goes to his shoulder and she applies gentle pressure, leading him to hop off the wagon and stand at her side. She starts to walk, floaty-smooth movements that down show beneath the heavy fabric of her robes, and Dove follows automatically, sending a look back to Solas, who moves to follow. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about, exactly?”

“There are many rumours about you. The Son of Andraste. I wanted to judge their truth for myself.”

Solas hums, coming up to their side. Dove is sandwiched between them, two towers of completely opposite ideals and aesthetics. “And do you think that you are uniquely qualified to seek the truth, Mother Giselle?” he says, and the condescension in his voice is obvious. “The right and left hand of the Divine herself have made their judgement on the matter, and you expect with a single look, a single conversation, that you will know better than they do?”

“I do not claim omnipotence. Pride is the most dangerous thing this world offers. More dangerous than war, or Blights, or even Mages, for it was Pride which made the Maker turn his back on us. Pride which made man invade the holy city, and to sully it.” 

It's good that neither of them are looking at him, because Dove is rapidly becoming  _ fascinated _ . He puts a hand over his mouth to hide any hint of a smile and watches the odd dance of fury and delight war across Solas’ face. The mage smiles, but it isn’t friendly in the slightest. “Convenient, that the Chantry sees Pride everywhere but within. You have looked upon him now. Do you know, with that single look, whether he is your Herald, your Hero, your Saviour? Is it your Makers holy light that shines from his palm?”

Giselle doesn’t look at Dove once, staring instead at Solas with statuesque frigidity. “I do not know.” she admits, her voice smooth and grave. “I know only that he is a child, surrounded by those who would use him for their own goals. Whether those goals are good or bad, I can not say.”

Dove cleared his throat, because he didn’t really want to see two incredibly old people get into a fistfight, especially while he was trapped between them. “Does that mean you want to join the Inquisition?”

“Yes.” she tells him, turning a smile towards him. She releases his shoulder and steps away. “I have already spoken with Seeker Pentaghast. I will go to Haven when I am finished helping the refugees here in the Crossroads.”

Solas scoffed. “So then it never mattered to you whether he was your chosen one or not.”

“No. Whether he is Chosen, or he is simply touched by Fate, I do not know. But I hope. The Inquisition has the power to unite this world, and I will do anything I can to help.”

Mother Giselle leaves, floating carefully across the battlefield, impervious to mud and blood and the dirty realities of her world. Dove tried not to hate her because it wasn’t as though she could help being the way she was written, but he didn't quite succeed. Beside him Solas was silent and fuming. Dove distracted him with questions about health potion colours and whether or not Demonic Ichor was a potions ingredient (yes, in poisons, which was a subject Solas was apparently dying to return to), and so another Encounter was passed successfully.

Cassandra and Varric return to them soon after, and the seeker looks relaxed in a way that Dove has not yet seen, like a massive weight is off her shoulders. Varric notices it too, looking up at her with an amused grin. “The interview went well, I take it?”

“Mother Giselle and her entourage have agreed to join the Inquisition.” Cassandra says it with a genuine smile, and Dove is surprised when she turned it on him. “She was unsure until she spoke with you. I do not know what you said, but I am glad that you were able to convince her of our need. Her help will be invaluable. Thank you for taking this seriously.”

He ducked his head so that she wouldn't see his complete incredulity. From the corner of his eye he can see that Solas looks like he has bitten into something sour. “Um. Yeah. You’re welcome. We should get out of here before I mess it up, though.”

“Agreed.”


End file.
